Dark Horizons
by Wolfgirl220
Summary: When Serenity takes on a new passenger with no memory of her past save a name the crew is thrown into a game of assassins, politics, botched experiments, irrevocable love, the desperate will to survive and war. Set between show and movie, drifts into movie. Dark. You have been warned. Rating WILL change.
1. Gone

**Thank you to all my readers who are sticking with the redo! I hope you like this version better than the original! (A lot of the same plot lines, but different at the same time. Promise!)**

**I (sadly, heartbreakingly, some of you rather glad of based on earlier fics) do not own Firefly. Enjoy!**

**Chapter One; Gone**

Malcolm Reynolds often said luck evaded him and his crew. His former passenger, a Shepard by the name of Book, would say that he had a path set for him by God. Mal didn't believe that and was not quiet about his opinion. He'd lost his war, his home, his love and was constantly persecuted for his freedom. What kind of path was that for any man?

God certainly has a sense of humor in regards to the former Independent Sergeant.

When Mal's path is thrown for yet another curve, this time one that is unbendable, he and his crew are doing a job for Badger. _Better be the last gorram one too_, Mal is thinking to himself as they land on the desolate little planet called Cassio, glaring out at the hills of bleached white sand and scraggly brush thrown carelessly around. The air is so thick and hot Mal's fairly sure a bullet would become ensnared in the dense substance if the gun didn't light it on fire first. Badger always has them running around to nasty parts on the farthest reaches of the black. The pay's decent but it's certainly not worth this torture. Maybe the fact they're delivering Alliance goods – properly stolen this time – is why he agreed to this damn mission. No more though. Never again.

Even Mal will admit without being forced there _will_ be another time. He'll never pass up a (safe) way to stab at the Alliance.

"Shnshèng de goŭ shĭ," Jayne Cobb pants when the ramp is dropped gracefully to the planet and the heat billows up onto the cargo bay. "Where'd you bring us Mal?!" Mal's first mate Zoey Washburne stands beside him and doesn't even flinch at the blistering atmosphere.

"We've got a job to do Jayne," she says briskly. "You gonna help or are you gonna whine?" She turns abruptly on her heel and walks back to the mule, loaded down with the cargo and revving to go. Kaylee Frye is doing last minute repairs on the little transport vehicle and muttering to herself.

"Should hold up. I really need those cables though, Cap, otherwise she ain't gonna last much longer…"

"Next time we land Kaylee, alright?" Mal tells her impatiently. He doesn't mean to snap at her but he wants this done with as fast as possible so they can get off this planet and back into the Black. He doesn't apologize but Kaylee smiles as if he did and shakes her head with an eye roll. She's so used to his moods at this point she rarely flinches anymore. Only when he's really mean does she react. Mal hoists himself into the mule and Zoe slides gracefully in beside him. Jayne takes residence in the back with his favorite gun slung across his lap. Simon and River Tam watch them from up on one of the many walkways hanging over the cargo bay, Simon with an expression of reluctant concern while his psychic sister looks on with curiosity. With a pang Mal realizes this is all that is left of his crew. Simon, River, Zoe, Kaylee, Jayne and Zoe's husband up in the cockpit piloting _Serenity_. When did it begin to feel like too few people were on his ship? "Let's get a move on," Mal shouts before his emotions get the best of.

The mule lurches forward unpleasantly (okay, okay, he _does_ need to make sure Kaylee gets those gorram cables) before taking off properly. The wind and sand buffet Mal's face while the sun beats down on him mercilessly. This place is almost completely dead; a few ramshackle abandoned cottages peppered with faint green moss are the only real sign of life around him. He feels a shiver run down his spine, one part trepidation and two parts disgusted fury. _Bet you sided with the Alliance_, he thinks snidely at the planet. _Look at how you're lookin' now, huh? _They're bitter, angry thoughts, and he knows it, but he can't seem to stop them. He has a lot to be bitter about these days.

For once the drop would have been easy. They meet the party in an almost completely deserted one street town, in a tiny saloon reeking of stale alcohol and depression. Mal and Zoe get off and go into the bar, leaving Jayne with the cargo and his furious whining about the heat. They don't plan to leave him long. There are three men inside and they smile when they see Mal and Zoe. One of them, a light haired youth with a gentle face, bright golden eyes and a wide smile, introduces himself as Jonathon Morgan. The other is a man with a hard face, also light haired, and with eyes hidden behind a pair of thick sunglasses. He barely grunts a "Thorne" at them before glaring back at his glass (or at least Mal thinks he is by the way he is swirling the amber liquid in his glass and his sunglasses don't move from the table).

"Ignore him," Morgan says with a laugh. "Ian's been pissed off since his sister went missing about four years ago." Thorne glares at him but Morgan goes back to chatting thoughtlessly like nothing is wrong. Mal instantly doesn't trust him. He was aiming at something there by making the sister comment, he knows it, and obviously Thorne does too. The tension is thick between the two men, almost unbearably so. If Mal wasn't mistaken he'd say they hated each other and were only playing nice to please a man higher up. They weren't going at him, though, and he wasn't one to start a fight.

Well, _usually_. Actually no he usually started the fight. But this time would be different!

The men converse with Zoe and Mal for a while before asking to see the cargo. "Money first," Zoe says calmly. "Sorry, boys, we can't be too careful these days." Mal thinks something flashes in Morgan's eyes, but it's gone so fast he can't tell what it is, replaced with that politician's smile Mal is coming to quickly loath. With a few words this boy revealed himself to be from "privileged" society and that's grating on his nerves to no end.

"Of course," he says smoothly. "We understand." He pulls a leather bag out from under the seat and hands it to Zoe, who quickly checks the contents. She nods at Mal who stands up and gestures the two men to follow him. They exit the saloon and go outside to check on the cargo. Satisfied that it's what they came for, the men smile (or at least Morgan does) and Thorne lifts the big black box almost effortlessly from the back of the mule. Zoe and Mal raise eyebrows at each other conspiratorially, surprised at the ease with which the slight man is able to pick up the box that took two of them to lift. Jayne yawns and readjusts himself in the back. The man is practically useless without any violence around.

"Everything seems to be in order," Thorne says gruffly. He didn't even look into the box before saying this. Mal almost wants to argue but something about these men is making his skin crawl over his bones and he just wants to leave. Immediately. They've got the money, the men have the package, now it's time to get moving.

"Alright then," Mal says with a smile and a polite nod. "We'll be leavin' then if everythin's in order." Morgan opens his mouth to say something but Thorne clamps a hand over his shoulder and throws a sinister smile at Mal. _I swear, creeps go lookin' fer me…_

"Yes. Please do." His voice is rough with misuse and his lips press into a thin line along the ridges of his teeth, giving the impression that he's baring them at _Serenity's_ crew. Zoe's hand instinctively reaches for her gun and Jayne sits up with a tighter grasp over Vera's trigger. Sensing that the charged atmosphere is directed at them now, Mal hastily climbs into the mule and says goodbye.

"Hope to see you again soon Mr. Reynolds," Morgan calls after him. Mal smiles and tries to hide the urge to scream, in no uncertain terms with a lot of unnecessary swearing, that they certainly _won't_ be doing business with them again. He starts up the mule and they leave in a puff of dust and a whirl of hot air.

"What in the hell were those fellas?" Jayne bellows over the noise of the engine once the men are safely behind them. "They kinda looked like somethin' outta ona those ol' horror stories Ma used to tell me."

"I don't know and I ain't stickin' 'round to find out," Mal shouts back. Zoe is still playing with her gun and remaining silent. Mal knows this means she's as spooked by the two slight, tall but not physically overly oppressing men they just left behind.

"How'd much we get fer this job anyhow Mal?" Jayne calls. Mal nods quickly at Zoe, who takes out the leather bag and starts pawing through the money inside.

"Looking close to a fifty thousand Sir," she tells Mal. There's a wary but appreciative note in her voice, and Mal nearly slams on the brakes right there. _A hundred thousand?! Méiyǒu tā mā de fāngshì!_ Jayne lets out a whoop of delighted and surprised laughter. Zoe on the other hand looks apprehensive.

"Musta been important, whatever we dropped off," she says in a low voice Mal can barely make out over the roar of the engine. Mal shoves aside his fear of what they left behind so he can quickly let out his own cry of exhilaration. God Almighty this will take care of them for a good long time if they work it right. Kaylee would definitely be getting her cables now.

"I don't give a son of a whore for whatever that was! Finally, a streak of luck!" Mal crows to the skies. He should have known better. He really should have.

Jayne is the first to spot the ship. He cries out in shock and points at the steaming wreckage breaking atmo much too fast to be safe. Mal looks up too and swears in Chinese. The damn thing is headed straight for them. He slams on the breaks and veers sharply to the left, nearly rolling the mule in an effort to avoid the collision. The ship spinning out of control is tiny, nothing more than an emergency shuttle. It is battered and run through with different bullet and laser holes, part of the tail on fire and the windshield almost completely gone. Mal, Zoe and Jayne watch as the tiny thing skids onto the dusty stretch of land and slams its wing, flipping over repeatedly in the sand and throwing dirt and rocks every which way. It is with horrified fascination that they watch the ship finally come to a stop on the barren earth, upside down, what little glass there was cracked and strewn over the planet. The shuttle continues to smoke, plumes of blackish blue smog blowing through the end and twirling in the overheated air. Fuel is leaking through tiny cracks in the ship, puddles of the thin liquid glimmering against the sand like pools of water at the beginning of an oasis.

And closer to the cockpit a rusty-red viscous substance is spreading in an ever-deepening lake the three were all too familiar with in their respective lifetimes.

Mal doesn't even think. He launches himself out of the murmuring mule and shoots out towards the shuttle. Zoe is close on his heels, her gun drawn and at the ready. Jayne shouts at them in angry and irritated fear as they approach the shuttle swiftly. Mal reaches it first, dropping onto all fours to see if there was anyone alive inside.

A dead reaver nearly smacks him in the face as it falls out of the cockpit.

Mal yells and scrambles away as the mutilated corpse collapses at his feet. There are self-inflicted gouges all over its face, some half-sewn shut, others stapled. One eye is bloodied from what looks like a piece of glass sticking out of the socket, and there is a vertical rip in its throat from a knife embedded in the bone near the base of the skull. It is definitely dead, but the problem is, it hadn't died when the ship crashed.

"Sir, is that a -"

"Yeah, it mighty well is," Mal growls. Zoe's gun goes to the ship and she wipes sweat away from her brow so she can see more clearly. Mal draws his own gun and crouches again, staying farther away lest another dead reaver, or worse a live one, tumbles out. The angry sun strikes them with the heat and little waves rise from the pools of fuel. They need to hurry up and leave if there are no survivors or they'll die.

Mal sees another reaver slumped haphazardly over a chair inside the shuttle. This one did die in the crash; he can see the blood splatter from where the reaver hit its head against the chair and then the console when the shuttle crashed. Its vacant eyes stare out, blood shot and cruel even in death. Mal takes a deep breath and creeps a little closer. "Sir," Zoe warns but he doesn't heed her. He can see a black arm dangling upside down, fingers trailing against the roof of the shuttle, a little trail of blood leading up to a gash on the shoulder where the black "skin" is ripped away to show damaged silvery-white flesh. As he watches the fingers twitch and a low moan sounds through the warped cockpit.

"We got a live one! Not a reaver!" Mal shouts, holstering his gun and stumble-crawling forward. The person inside is encased in a tight black spacesuit, nothing like he's ever seen before, and a thick black helmet. Mal only knows two things about the person. The first is that whoever this is needs medical attention _fast_ as more blood is flowing through the helmet and plopping sickeningly against the rood of the shuttle. The second is that this person is a woman. Her curves, while very obviously restricted in some way, are still there. Zoe rushes to the other side to help grab the woman when he pulls her out. Mal gingerly reaches in and unclasps the woman's seat belt, his hands darting forward to cradle her bleeding and encased head when she promptly lurches out of her seat. But she only falls partway, upper body folding almost gracefully over the dashboard, her long arms splaying forward towards him in an almost silent plea for help even in unconsciousness. Her legs are caught beneath the console.

"Zoe I think she's stu-" Mal starts to tell his first mate. The woman's hand nearest him suddenly flies out and punches him. The blow is a surprise and he has no time to block it. It catches him beneath his jaw and he tumbles backwards away from the shuttle. He sees the helmet move back and forth frantically, tiny whimpers and cries of pain falling through the glass and plastic. She braces her bloody hands against the console and shoves, screaming at the shock of what must be agony pulsing through her as her legs catch. Zoe drops to all four and makes shushing noises frantically.

"It's okay, we ain't gonna hurt ya, just calm down, please calm down…" His first mate's words are ignored as the girl twists her body savagely. There's a crack and then she's crying out in more pain but she tumbles free, a heap of bones, muscle and shiny black fabric sprawling across the dirt. Zoe makes as if to grab the strange woman but she skitters back away from the black woman, one leg awkwardly stuck out from the rest of her body. The light catches her helmet and Mal sees that the pane of glass is not only warped and cracked but splattered in blood too. She probably can't even see them. He certainly can't see her.

"Hey, hey!" Mal bellows, struggling to get to his feet. The helmet turns to him. "Now listen to me!" It must be his curse, for his crew won't listen and this woman seems to have no intention of doing so either. She suddenly lunges at him, knocking him to the ground, her hands promptly going for his throat. Mal instinctively shoves at her to get her off, Zoe screams obscenities and trains her gun on the young woman and Jayne _finally_ decides to join the fray. By the time Mal gets the girl off of him she has his gun and is pointing the barrel at his head. "Why don't know one listen to me…" Mal grumbles to himself.

"Don't you shoot him," Zoe spits at the other woman. The woman's helmet is turned towards Mal as is her gun. He can see that her hands are shaking as she unlocks the safety. "You won't live two seconds if you do," Zoe warns. Jayne points Vera at the girl and growls a few choice words in Chinese at her. The girl shakes her head and stutters out a few words so garbled they aren't even intelligible. She frantically points the gun at Mal again and Zoe unlocks her own safety. "For the last time, take the gun off of him!"

They're too busy with the new girl that they don't see that a third reaver was not only crammed in the impossibly small space of the shuttle, it's still alive. But she sees it. It's dazed, but quickly gaining focus, its blood-shot eyes narrowing in on the man in front of the mystery woman. For once the thing is quiet. Its hands flex like a cat about to unsheathe its claws, body coiling, pushing away from the console... The woman pulls the trigger in the split second before the reaver's grasping fingers collide with Malcolm Reynold's head. They tumble and male lets out a shriek of horror and disgust, pushing at the thing lying on top of him until it rolls to the side. Zoe stares at the bullet hole in the corrupted monster's head, and then slowly trails her gaze back to the shuttle. Brain matter is splattered all over the outside in a queasy gory pattern. She turns her head back to the woman in amazement, holstering her gun and ready to apologize and thank her profusely, only to find while the three of them were distracted she had slumped backwards, falling back into the inky depths of oblivion.

Mal, after realizing the person who saved his life was no longer conscious, hastened to his feet and shot over to her side. More blood was leaking from the helmet and he begins to pry at it with desperate fingers. "Mal we need ta leave, _now_!" Jayne cautions. His captain ignores him and continues to prod at the helmet, looking for a catch, a lever, _anything_ to get the helmet off of her and assess the damage.

His fingers encounter a tiny notch near the chin and there's a faint _pop_, before the helmet cracks down the side and falls away from the woman's head. Dark blonde-brown hair billows out around her face and for a moment he can't see where the wound is because the hair seems to be rinsed in the blood seeping from her scalp. But then the wild curls settle and he sees her. Gold eyes stare at him through lowered lids, pleading, pain and terror written in the bright irises. Then the eyes close and she's completely gone for the time being.

Mal feels like he just entered a dream as he scoops the woman into his arms and numbly stands there with her in his arms. Her shallow breathing strains the already tight material of her suit and her hands twitch at her sides in spasms because of the pain she feels even below the surface of sleep. For what seems to be an eternity but is closer to a few heartbeats Mal stares at her face in disbelief. At first glance one would say she was too harsh to be beautiful. Her heart shaped face ends in a slightly pointed chin, her eyebrows are rather severe for her face, her nose too straight and clean cut, her cheekbones jutting out sharply. She is rather like a painting where only the pointed structure of the face had been sketched and was awaiting the flesh to fill it out. But a closer inspection reveals how her silvery-white skin is dotted with tiny, golden, girl-like freckles across the ridge of her nose, how large her eyes are, the full and sweet red bow of her mouth, and the power of her beauty hits the senses in one swoop. She stops looking like a half-finished painting and begins to resemble works of angels of destruction and death, terrifying and beautiful and raw all at once. Mal clutches her thin frame to him and feels the tremble of her skin against his hands and the weakness of her in her current state. That finally snaps him out of the reverie he was in for a few precious seconds.

"Zoe you drive! Jayne, be on the lookout for more reavers!" Mal orders briskly, stooping carefully to grab the girls helmet before rising again. "I don't wanna have to deal with any more, got it?!"

"Are we bringin' her?" Jayne demands in disbelief. Mal doesn't even bother nodding but climbs into the back with the girl across his lap. For in sleep, with her lush and long black lashes against her cheeks and her lips parted, she seems to be too vulnerable to by a full grown woman. Mal gently turns her head and sees a gash starting from her temple to roughly half-way to the back of her head. Without thinking he presses his fingers to the wound, not caring for the moment if his hands are filthy from trying to pull her out. For the moment at least he only cares about making it back to _Serenity_.

When he sees his beloved ship in sight he nearly groans with relief. Kaylee lowers the ramp for them and they barrel into _Serenity_ and nearly crash the mule against the back before Zoe stops it. When he stands up with the girl in his arms his shirt is soaked through with blood and his skin is sticky with it. Panic begins to set in as he realizes that she is wounded somewhere other than her head and bleeding out quickly. Already her heartbeat is much weaker than it should have been.

"Aī yā, Cap! What's goin' on?" Kaylee demands, rushing to help them. She stops and gapes at the girl in Mal's arms. "Who's _that_?"

"Simon!" Mal shouts, completely ignoring his young mechanic. Simon steps out onto the walkway and sees the girl slowly dying. He swears and pelts down the stairs two at a time, nearly tripping over his own feet in the rush to get to the medical bar.

"Follow me," he orders the older man. Mal strides after him, being careful to not move the young woman in his arms too much. She still whimpers and her hands reflexively clutch at him when he jostles her too much. Simon guides Mal into the infirmary and gestures for him to lay the girl on the bed as he dons an apron and surgical gloves. "How much damage has she suffered?" Simon interrogates him, moving back with a pair of scissors and a syringe. With a deft hand Simon cuts away at the suit until it hangs off of her, revealing that she is wearing nothing but a thick and formerly white cloth around her breasts to bind them down. Simon cuts through that too and then makes swift work of removing the fabric covering her legs. Mal winces when the suit catches on the dislocated joint and looks away, ashamed that he is seeing this woman he doesn't even know naked and scared that Simon thinks it's necessary. For the young Doctor to completely tear away her clothes must mean something bad for he had never went to that extreme.

Mal turns and sees the rest of his crew standing at the windows of the medical bay. Mal glares at them and they scatter immediately with looks to each other and at the strange girl lying naked and bleeding on the bed. Mal makes quick work of covering the windows before leaning against the counter. Simon doesn't order him to leave, too preoccupied with his patient. He removes a needle from the girl's arm and hooks her up to a heart monitor and other gadgets to determine her health. "Lung's been punctured, probably by a knife," Simon mutters. Mal can clearly see now a gash in her ribs previously hidden by the suit, weeping consistent bloody tears. "Mal I need you to hold her down while I reflate the lung and help her clear it." Mal doesn't know why he needs to help the doctor with this until Simon uses a few odd looking tools and the girl's back bows with the pressure of what he's doing. "Mal!"

Mal presses his hands down on the woman's shoulders, holding her down firmly to the bed, his fingers tentative and afraid to really press in. She seems to fragile right now, as if one word would break her. The rough calluses on his fingers encounter raised ridges and gouges all over her shoulders. Unwillingly he looks down and sees a myriad of scars crisscrossing over her back and down to her legs where prominent burn scars are clearly visible. He swallows hard and feels bile begin to rise in his throat. Bullet wounds, stab wounds, torture marks he's all too familiar with… He had lost his faith in God years earlier but something about the wounded angel on the bed makes him want to fervently pray. He doesn't really know about what. Maybe that she wasn't with reavers for too long. Maybe that she was strong enough that these marks didn't hurt her as mentally as much as they should have. Maybe that he was seeing things. He doesn't rightly know.

Simon makes quick work of the patient, diligently fighting the wound so he can clear her lungs and the organ can reflate properly. Once he seals the wound closed he gestures for Mal to move down her body. He does as asked, finding a smidgen of reluctance when he has to let go of her scarred but somehow very soft shoulders, but is keeping his eyes on Simon's left shoulder so as to not look down at the naked woman below him. "Her leg is dislocated," Simon murmurs to him. Mal flinches at the memory.

"Yeah, I'm kinda surprised it ain't broken, the way she was twisting all 'round tryin' to get out," Mal mutters. Simon gives him a curious glance before asking him if he knows how to treat dislocated joints. "Yeah, we had a few in the army. Why?"

"I need to stay up here with the wound farther up. I sealed the lung and cauterized it but I need to make sure that it's staying that way. Can you take care of that?" Simon asks gently. Mal hesitates before slowly nodding. His mind reels. What if he makes a mistake? What if he hurts her? _Shàngdì, _he doesn't need to add _that_ to the list of grievances against him! But he helps anyway, positioning his large hands carefully. One hand steadies her hips (he can't help but notice and like the hard muscle embracing the bone in his capable hands) while the other grasps her thigh tightly. With a glance at Simon, who is busy cleaning up the wounded area to make absolute sure his work is holding, Mal quickly slams the bone back into the socket. The girl wrenches almost imperceptibly on the table before settling down with a muted sigh. Satisfied that she is alright from there at least Simon turns his attention to the young woman's head. "Zài dìyù happened here?" Simon asks sharply.

"Don't rightly know," Mal admits, leaning back against the counter so he won't be in the way. "Found her in an escape shuttle when it was fallin'. Bunch a reavers in there with her." Simon curses some more in both Chinese and English before tilting her head.

"Minimal damage," he murmurs. "Don't even need to stich it up, basically a scratch… Unfortunately head wounds bleed a lot so she'll probably feel very woozy for a few days." Simon cleans up the woman's head carefully, gently rubbing the blood away, exposing a long scratch on her scalp. The bruising is visible even through her hair and _Serenity's_ captain looks away quickly. "She'll most likely have a concussion. But other than that and the obvious she should be fine." Simon puts gauze down on her side and tapes her up quickly before retrieving a blanket and draping it over her. The girl doesn't move, not even when the young doctor takes her wrist in his hand and draws it out so he can check for any more potentially fatal injuries. With her arm outstretched Mal can see that there's a name tattooed on the skin of her inner forearm in stylish script. _Serena_.

"Why'd anybody go and get their name tattooed on 'em?" Mal asks aloud. Simon shrugs.

"Don't think it's hers," he mumbles to himself. He glances over at his captain to see that Mal is raising an eyebrow at him. "Generally when people get names it's for a loved one of some kind. A lover, a wife or husband, sibling, child, friend who passed away…"

"We'll ask her what that means when she wakes up," Mal says briskly. He makes as if to leave the room abruptly. The reminder of lost friends and family is not one he needs right now, looking at the fallen angel on the bed barely clinging to life as it is.

"Why'd you save her?" Simon calls out, stopping him in his tracks. Mal pauses, one hand reaching for the door to draw it open, the other hanging onto the door frame.

"She saved me from a reaver. Shot it dead. Figured that it was the right thing ta do." His answer is ambiguous and Simon knows it. But the truth is he doesn't know why he did what he did. He doesn't know _why_ he felt the need to help her. He doesn't know why there's still a need to stay with her now. And he doesn't like that he has no idea about these needs suddenly creeping up on him.

"But you didn't have to go near the wreckage. Why risk your life?" A possibility dawns and he looks down at the young woman and then back at the captain. "Do you know her?" Mal snorts and continues through the door.

"I wouldn't be needin' to ask about that tattoo there if I did, would I?" he says sarcastically, slamming the door behind him. When he turns around he comes face to face with River. He swears and jumps back, alarmed at her sudden appearance. "Tā mā de, River, don't _do_ that!"

"You won't know," the teenage reader replies slowly, peering curiously at the covered windows and then back at the captain.

"Won't know what?" Mal asks guardedly. River drifts to the window and places her fingers at the seam between the glass and metal.

"Her. Blood's too thick. It's sloshing around, pressing in… melting away." She turns back to the confused captain with a sigh and he sees with a start that tears are in her big brown eyes. "She's melting away."

Mal mistakes her meaning. "Now River she ain't gonna die if that's what you're sayin'. Your brother says she's gonna be just fine." River shakes her head impatiently, before stopping herself and sighing.

"You don't understand," she says in frustration.

"No, I reckon I don't," Mal retorts, getting irritated with the psychic. River drifts from the window and stares down at her hands before glancing over her shoulder as if her eyes alone were enough to pound through layers of glass and steel to the girl hiding behind the walls.

"She's gone. All of her melted away. All that's left is scars. Scars and Miranda." Her eyes are unfocused as she scans the walls, and she whispers the name again to herself, feeling the familiar tug in her heart at the feel of the syllable between her lips. She knows it. And she's no longer the only one who does.

"That her name? Miranda?" Mal asks. River is irate at the obliviousness of her captain but she visibly bites her tongue so she won't snap at him.

"No. _She's_ all gone. Drifted away in blood." Giving up when she sees the captain's blank expression, River shakes her head and turns to the stairs so she can perch near the infirmary. "Her name's going to be Serena," she says after a moment, completely lucid for a few seconds before slipping under the edge of sanity again. Being a reader took quite the toll on the teenage girl.

"Right. Good. Now we got a name," Mal says readily. He's relieved they won't have to refer to her as _the girl_ or _the patient_ or _the newest passenger_ and so on. He still thinks it's odd that she had her name inked into her skin like that but hey, he can always ask her when she wakes up. And she _will_ wake up. He knows she will.

Glancing down at his shirt, Mal sees that the fabric is stained with the woman's – _Serena's_ – blood. Swearing, he takes off to go clean up the gory mess. He doesn't see River slip over to the infirmary and ease inside after a few looks around to see if anyone else was present. He doesn't see Simon smile at her or offer to come up soon as soon as he's done, or that River declines and sits next to Serena, taking hold of one of the patient's cold hands in her own warm ones. The captain doesn't know River's plans. At least not yet.

Kaylee stops Mal on the bridge, Zoe and Wash behind her in the door to the cockpit. "Who was that there Cap?" she asks eagerly. Mal shrugs and continues on to his bunk.

"Dunno. Just a person in need of some helpin'." He pops open the hatch to his room and starts to climb down.

"Whoa wait, Captain, are we just taking in some girl we don't even know?" Wash calls after him.

"Girl's got a name. Serena," Mal informs him stoutly, gathering clothes together and gingerly holding them between a few fingers in the hopes of not getting more blood on them. Wash barely can wait until the other man reemerges from his bunk before hammering him with more questions.

"Okay, Serena. We know anythin' else?" Wash demands. Mal shrugs again, annoyance clear in his posture.

"She ain't exactly said much, what with bein' unconscious and all."

"Well, I dunno, Zoe certainly says a lot when she's asleep – ow! Gorram woman!" Wash yelps, rubbing his toe where his wife stepped on it. Kaylee is giggling at the two of them and turning to Mal with bright eyes as he smirks.

"We can interrogate her _after_ she wakes up," Zoe reminds her husband, the faintest smile playing around her lips.

"I ain't sayin' we should interrogate her I just wanna know who she _is_!" Wash protests much to his wife – and everyone else who's present – amusement.

"That's because you're nosy, dear," she says wisely. While he stutters Zoe turns to the captain and says, "Get cleaned up Sir. It won't help matters none if our passenger wakes up to see that mess." Mal nods and heads in one direction while Zoe and Wash head in another. Kaylee stands confused for a moment on the bridge before shrugging and headed back down to her beloved engine. If they need her they'll find her.

Mal lumbers down to the showers and quickly strips, grimacing at the blood that's staining his skin rusty orange-red. He ducks under the shower and scrubs at his skin so hard it's raw and smarting by the time he stops. He's done that a lot over the years, whenever he gets the blood of innocents or friends splattered over him, and it still hurts as much emotionally each time. He's killed his fair share of people but there's something about that particular kind of blood that makes him feel hollow and lost.

He watches as the water becomes red and swirls down into the drain before sighing and grabbing the bar of soap. He lathers up and rinses off, feeling an odd sensation of release flood through him as the blood becomes a distant memory. He redresses and heads out, finding his crew gathered and waiting to hear about the new woman. Even Simon's present, cleaned up as well, but River is mysteriously absent. They're all there, waiting, wanting to know about the newest curve in their respective paths.

_Serena_.

**That's it for now, hope you liked! Please let me know!**

**-Wolfgirl220**


	2. Awake

**I don't know why the fic didn't show that I had put the edited chapter up… weird… Anyway sorry, I know I should have put this up earlier, but my fun-writing time is all based on my necessary-writing, homework, chores, running my brother around now that I have my care back… and whether or not I realize I've been reading too long… So to sum up my rambling, if my old readers haven't read chapter one new version yet, please do before you read this one, chapter two. **

**So I don't own Firefly. (No clever one right now, it's midnight and I'm tired, hopefully the beginning of this chapter doesn't suck.) Hope you enjoy!**

**Chapter Two; Awake**

River Tam is many things. Patient is usually one of them. She has to be patient while the rest of the 'verse catches up with her thinking. But as of now, she is practically jostling her seat into the bed as she waits for the newest passenger – _Serena _– to wake up. _A first for her, too. Asleep… been asleep for so long… needs to wake up_, she thought to herself. _Angels need to wake and unfurl their wings or they will die. Monsters must eat or they will starve. And a heart needs a heart._

To settle herself River grabs the cloth and bowl of warm water on the counter and very gently begins cleaning away the drying and flaking blood on Serena's hand. The past twenty-three hours, forty seven minutes, and exactly fifteen and a half seconds have found River doing that: cleaning. She's already cleaned Serena's face and hair, her chest, her arms… All that's left are the hands. One is half done, the other, the one she is currently working on, a quarter. She frowns down at the stubborn bits of blood under Serena's nails – Pìhuà, how does one get blood under nails when one is wearing a skin-tight suit? – and carefully scrapes at it. _Can't let her trigger, must keep her from triggering, needs to be awake not asleep… No blood. Blood will make her trigger._

To an outsider listening to her ramblings, River sounds discombobulated and unfocused. Inside her mind though each word means something more, something important, something _grand._ She needs these words to make sense of the others floating through her mind, words that do not belong to her, words ripped from the unspoken tongues of others. Her brother worries about her, and sometimes she hates these other words and wants them to _shut up_, but in her lucid moments she does not mind them. Rather, she likes them when they are soft, and gentle, and not too noisy. Jayne's noisy. She does not like Jayne's words, all rough and tumble, sharp and jagged, bloody and explicit. He's smart, smarter than he appears, and his words have a ring of intelligence to them which only makes them harder and sharper. Zoe is not loud but she has bad words in her mind too. River can tolerate her words but they make her skin crawl sometimes. Wash has nice words about flying but they are skittish words, never standing still for her. She has to chase them and she doesn't like that. Simon's words get on her nerves, irritating her to no end because of the hope and grief she has too much of already in her own words. Kaylee's words are nice words, happy words, encouraging words; River really likes Kaylee's words.

But the Captain's words… the Captain's words make her think. And she so does love to think. He has words of love mixed in with words of loss and hate. He talks constantly of freedom. She understands him better than the others, the mix of love and hate and desire for more. And so does Serena, or at the very least she will. The only word River hears her speaking, over and over, is _free. Free, free, free, free, free. _It's soft, muted, hidden; she wouldn't know she's saying it so much unless River pointed it out to her.

Finished now with the one hand and happy at the clean silvery skin gleaming under the soft lights, River walks around the bed and gets to work on the other hand. The blood here is dryer than the other side so River has an easier time mopping it up. It's when she starts on the fingernails that she feels Serena stir. River doesn't stop what she's doing as the words become more frequent and louder. She continues to clean the woman's nails until the hand suddenly flexes and grips River's wrist in a move so fast River couldn't track it. River stays calm, letting her hold her wrist, and tilts her head curiously to look at Serena.

Wide gold eyes are staring at her, a mixture of fear and confusion in her gaze. "Who… who are you?" she mumbles, her grip loosening on River's wrist when she decides River isn't going to murder her. River doesn't move her hand though, letting her hang onto her.

"A friend." River moves back to cleaning the older woman's nails. "I'm River. And you're Serena." She feels the words become louder and more confused as the name beats with a hollow rhythm beneath the pumping of Serena's heart. Serena doesn't remember that being her name. And with rising panic, she realizes she doesn't remember _anything_. River brushes her fingers along the back of Serena's hand and the golden eyes snap to her. Unreal golden eyes designed and placed in Angel's face. "Peace, Artificial Eyes," River says gently. The artificial eyes narrow slightly.

"What did you call me?" Serena asks, sharply but not meanly. River smiles at her and the hand she encases in her own fingers begins to relax. "You're a reader," Serena says out loud, letting go of her scowl. She doesn't understand how she knows, but she knows. It's almost as if she can feel River's mental ear pressed to Serena's mental lips as she whispers unconsciously to her.

"And you're gone, Artificial Eyes," River replies. Serena snorts and turns towards River, folding her body into a fetal position after a hiss of pain.

"Yeah, I guess that's one way of putting it," she murmurs, raising tentative fingers to her scalp and gingerly pressing on the wound wrapping around her skull. Simon had left it without bandages, deciding some sort of flexible clear goo was better for her. Less stress at not seeing or feeling thick bandages when she woke up he reasoned at the time. Besides, it wasn't a deep wound. She should be fine. "You said my name is Serena?"

"Borrowed name," River informs her, turning over her wrist and pointing at the name scripted into her flesh. Her fingers enclose over a tight little gash as she does so, long healed and scarred, but once dangerous. River doesn't let herself think of nasty words to describe this particular scar.

Serena stares at the name, words on the very edge of her conscious mind pressing to get out, but she shakes her head and accidentally shoves them back in. River feels a stab of relief as she watches that door completely close. "I… I don't know who that is," Serena says apologetically to River, brushing the wild brownish-blonde curls off of her shoulders. It's lighter than Kaylee's very dark blonde hair, with enough red in it that River can only think that the color is sunshine through amber glass onto a brown field of wheat. She tells Serena this, who smiles a little bit at the complex color analysis and pulls a curl around to see for herself.

"All I see is dark blonde but alright," she murmurs, allowing River to redirect her thought process away from the name on her arm. She sits up slowly, with River's help, and becomes aware of another fact. "Um, River… why am I naked?" More words, bad and horrible and_ evil_ words, churn on Serena's panicking mental tongue and River has to fight a whimper at them. _Nasty familiar words_, she thinks with a shudder.

"Simon needed to help. Cut away the black to show the blood. See?" River pulls away from the new woman to pull out the tattered remains of her suit and the cracked helmet nearby on the counter. Serena visibly shivers with relief as she pulls the sheet over her exposed and scarred breasts.

"Simon… is that the ship's doctor?" Serena asks. She wraps the sheet toga style around herself and sets her feet on the ground, testing herself before rising slowly. She winces and grunts at the pain in her side but she stands on her own. River smiles encouragingly and nods.

"My big brother," she says proudly, and Serena laughs at the expression on her face.

"So, Reader River with the big brother Doctor Simon," Serena teases for a moment before becoming serious. "Where am I?"

"_Serenity_. Part of a class of cargo ships nicknamed 'Fireflies' due to bug-like appearance and the exposed turbo at the bottom of the ship," River recites. Then, less formally, she says, "Home." Serena nods and makes her way to River carefully. She doesn't ask River to explain because she already understands.

"Okay," she says, pausing and letting the information sink in. "Okay. Is there anyone else on the ship? Besides you, me and your brother?" River nods and dumps the bowl of bloody water into the sink.

"Yes. There's Jayne, who's nasty, Wash, who's funny, Zoe, who's scary, and Kaylee, who's happy. Oh and Malcolm, the ship's captain. He's lost," River tells her. Serena frowns as she ponders this. River can hear her sorting through the information and what she had stored away in her vast compartments about readers. No specific memories came out with the information she found there but River feels Serena's stab of recognition at this behavior. Nervously River waits for her to trigger and the memories to flood back. None do and she lets out a small breath as Serena gives up on trying to identify the double meaning to River's words and settles for finding out on her own.

Serena attempts to hop up on the counter and talk to River more directly, but the stitches in her side pull hard, and with a hiss she has to stop or risk ripping them out. "Don't do that," River admonishes. Serena gives her a reproachful look and deliberately uses her hands to maneuver herself onto the counter, hesitantly releasing her weight there when she's sure that she won't fall or ruin Simon's work. River rolls her eyes and mutters, "Insolent Artificial Eyes." Serena smiles.

"A little I guess." She pauses and looks at her arms, studying them curiously. They're covered in scars of all shapes and sizes and the one has her new name inscribed there. Words revolving around loneliness and interest swirl to River's ears. She doesn't recognize the gash on her wrist or its twin on the joint of the other hand for what they are among the scars. "This is so weird… it's like I'm relearning how to be myself all over again. Or rediscovering myself. Reinventing myself?" Serena chews her bottom lip thoughtfully.

"Clean slate," River tells her. When Serena gives her a searching look, trying to grasp what she means, River struggles to explain her thoughts. "Not anyone's choice but yours. Wipe what you want off, write what you want on." Serena nods, understanding a little. River rummages under the counter and pulls out a long piece of white fabric. "Here." Serena takes the white bundle and unfolds the fabric to find a simple dress with thin straps in her hands. She feels the fabric against her callused palms – _Callused? What was I before?_ River hears her say to herself – before checking to make sure the windows are covered. Hesitantly she disembarks from the counter and lets the sheet drop. River looks away politely but she can still hear the self-examination.

There is more scar tissue than actual skin on her body. Serena touches about half-way down her thighs with the rough tips of her fingers, frowning as she traces the burn pattern splayed on her skin. The burn is puckered and ugly, the way it revolves around her thighs and dribbles onto her calves telling her that a very hot or dangerous liquid was poured onto her legs. _Acid_, she discerns, and River grimaces at the pictures that particular word conjures. Knife wounds trek up what is left of her thighs, over her hips and close to her belly-button. From there are healed wounds, thick white scars to tiny pink lines and everything in between, bullet holes and some scars she doesn't even want to consider. Shaking her head, Serena manages to get the dress on by stepping into it without bending and pulling it over her thin hips. She frowns and pokes at the rather tight bust of the dress in disgust before scowling down at the higher hemline. She is not particularly curvy by any stretch of the imagination, but Serena is still very much a woman, and it shows in this dress. Shaking her head Serena lifts her arms as much as she is able to and coils her hair into a messy and complicated braid over one shoulder. If not for the occasional scrape or the cut on one shoulder Serena would look perfect in all her raw beauty.

River turns back around when Serena is finished cleaning up and offers her a hand. Serena takes it and lets River guide her out of the infirmary. Serena's bare toes occasionally catch on the grating beneath her feet but otherwise her footsteps are silent and cautious. She follows River, allowing her hand to be tugged ahead of her, and doesn't say anything as her inquisitive eyes scan everything with the air of a blind woman seeing for the first time. River leads her to the engine room where she can hear Kaylee working on the ship.

"Kaylee," River calls. Kaylee looks up and wipes a hand over her face, smearing grease onto her cheek. "She's awake." Kaylee beams suddenly and bounces to her feet. Her whole face glows at the prospect of meeting the interesting new woman who has been there but not been there for near a day and a half.

"Howdy!" Kaylee practically screams and Serena all but hides behind River at the abruptly energetic girl in front of her. River finds it amusing that this is the first time she's been shy about anything since she awoke. Serena watches Kaylee with uncertainty as the younger girl approaches her. "I'm Kaylee! Who are you?" she bubbles excitedly. Serena shrugs and River cuts in for her.

"She's Serena," she informs Kaylee.

"Or so she tells me," Serena mumbles, clutching River's hand a little tighter. Serena doesn't know what to make of the bouncy thing in front of her. Calm and collected (if a little touched) River she can handle. This young woman in all her youth and vibrating energy makes her more wary. Kaylee's eagerness ebbs a little at Serena's confession.

"What? What does that mean?" she asks. River shrugs.

"She's gone. Clean slate. Wiped away," River explains. This only increases Kaylee's confusion and River grumbles a little as her words become not very nice and a little louder than normal.

"I don't… I don't remember anything," Serena says quietly behind River. Kaylee's jaw drops and Serena shifts with discomfort at the tears threatening Kaylee's eyes. River's not so sure this was a good idea.

"Aw, you poor thing," Kaylee mumbles. "Nothin'? There ain't anythin' left?" Serena shakes her head mutely, staring at her hand tangled with River's fingers dejectedly. She's not panicking but she's confused in her own mind and River hates it. She tugs Serena into the room and sits her down on the floor, fussing a little when she winces in pain, before settling next to her. Kaylee comes over and plops down across from them with her back against the engine and a sympathetic look adorning her face. "That's harsh," Kaylee says. Serena shrugs and leans back against the wall. She doesn't want to talk about her lack of memories. She tenses as Kaylee gets closer and her hand flexes briefly. Serena doesn't want pity or sympathy either. She hates feeling weak.

"How's _Serenity_?" River asks out of the blue, the other women in the room turning to her in surprise. "Is she okay? You were telling the Captain you needed something for her…" River persists. With an apologizing look at Serena Kaylee answers River, slipping back into her excitement as she talks about her beloved ship.

Serena narrows her eyes at River and presses her lips into a thin line. _I know what you're doing,_ she says very firmly in her head to River. River grins, a flash of teeth and sly joy, before turning her head back to Kaylee as if she is paying attention. Serena squeezes her hand briefly, the only thanks she can permit herself to give, before turning cold again. _I can take care of myself, River_.

"Family takes care of family, be it flesh or metal," River says once there's a break in Kaylee's speech. Kaylee is puzzled at the words but accepts them as a compliment to her wanting to take care of _Serenity_. Serena knows that River is answering her and snorts aloud.

"Didn't realize I was adopted now," she mumbles so quietly only River hears her. River flashes her a smile and nods in the affirmative. Serena, who had only been teasing River, blushes and looks away. Embarrassment and chagrin twine through her words now, but below, almost hidden and certainly not apparent to the young woman, is the glittery taste of hope. River smiles smugly to herself and curls up against Serena's side. She tucks her head against Serena's thin shoulder and draws her knees into towards the other girl, one hand resting on Serena's pale arm. Serena tenses, taken aback by this display of physical affection, and doesn't relax until River moves away. Even then she watches the reader warily, as if afraid of the physical contact. In a way she is; vague inclinations of neglect and abuse from her Before are rampant in River's mind, and while hand-holding seems to be okay, that was not. Too affectionate.

River will have to work on that if Serena is to have a better After than her Before.

* * *

When Mal checks in the infirmary to see if the new woman on board his precious ship is conscious yet he finds Simon standing there in confusion but no patient. "Hey, Doc, where'd she go?" he asks in disbelief. Simon shrugs helplessly and shakes his head.

"I don't know. I can't find River either." Naked panic takes over the young man's features as he turns to Mal. "Oh God, you don't think she hurt them do you?"

"No, I reckon if she was goin' for hurtin' she coulda let that reaver rip inta me." He leans back to look down the hallway as Simon splutters. "Judgin' the fact that it's _your_ sis we're talkin' 'bout here I ain't thinkin' she's hurt. Probably draggin' your patient 'round though." Simon still looks unsure so Mal rolls his sky blue eyes and gestures for Simon to follow him. The Captain leads the younger doctor around _Serenity_ for several minutes, peering into corners and double checking rooms. It's when they near the engine that they finally hear the laughter.

"No gorram way." The voice is laughing, feminine, husky and beautiful, lilting in all the right places to add a sophisticated air without sounding pretentious. And it's not very familiar. Mal pauses and just listens even as Simon struggles to get around him. Mal stops him with a look and waits a beat. "Your Captain did that? Zhēn?"

"Yeah! It was really shiny actually! Well, 'cept for the cows…" That's Kaylee, coming to his defense and ruining it simultaneously. The other woman laughs.

"I didn't even know people still _have_ duels. I thought they fell out of style during the eighteen-hundreds." She's very amused but not condescending. "Wonder if I've ever been in a duel…?" What? She doesn't know if she's been in a duel? He hears River sniff slightly. "What?"

"No duels. Reavers. Ripping, not graceful fighting," River says, almost dreamily. Mal feels a shiver run down his spine at the comment. A feminine snort greets the reader's words.

"Yeah, I kind of figured that one out when I woke up in a crashed shuttle."

"You 'member why you were there?" Kaylee asks quietly. There's a soft sound of a light substance hitting flesh. _Shaking her head I guess. And 'membering? Why ain't she remembering?_

"Sorry. All I can recall is seeing a damn reaver body in my face. And then hitting your captain, as River has informed me. Sorry about that too." Simon again tries to dart around Mal but Mal puts a hand out in warning. He wants to hear this. Kaylee laughs.

"He needs ta be hit a little if ya ask me," Kaylee giggles. "Shoulda seen some of the crazier things he's done. Kinda wish someone woulda hit him for some a it." He hears that husky laugh again mixed with River's familiar giggling-laughs. Suddenly Mal sees a pair of sparkling golden eyes peering at him around the door from the floor, the laughing mouth quirking up timidly. He's enraptured by her all over again and curses his inability to maintain his gorram mind in the face of pretty women. She glances back into the room and then at him again, eyelids half lowered and a blush spreading across her sharp cheeks.

"He needs to be hit now," River says from behind the door. "Eavesdropping is bad, Captain. Never hear well of yourself otherwise." She pauses as if reconsidering. "Well, except for now." The woman in front of Mal turns a shade darker and ducks back into the room. Kaylee comes out next, standing instead, a bright smile on her face. "Cap'n! Simon! Come and meet Serena!" She pulls them into the room without letting them decide for themselves, forcing them to comply with her wishes.

The woman – Serena – is against the wall, one hand pressed to her side, the other being clutched by River. River smiles at the men and tightens her hold on Serena. Serena smiles a little more boldly at the two of them and stretches a little bit. Mal looks down and sees her legs, long and beautiful if very badly scarred. Her toes are rather oddly formed, half crushed together in parts, and her feet are very obviously damaged in parts. His heart sinks. It looks like a very familiar form of torture the Alliance particularly likes using on prisoners of war. Scars and torture. He's very much interested in this woman's story.

It takes longer than it should for him to register that everyone is staring at him, Kaylee expectantly, the others curiously. She had asked him a question while he was staring at Serena's feet. _Well, ain't that a shiny first impression?_ "I'm sorry, mei-mei, I weren't listenin'." Kaylee rolled her eye good naturedly and laughed.

"I said, been real interestin' 'cause Serena here don't 'member nothin'. She was askin' earlier if you saw anyone else in her shuttle. I ain't sure, you ain't been talkin' and neither has Zoe…" she trails off, leaving him to answer. He does, slowly. She doesn't remember? Truly? Or is she looking for a way to hide?

"Not that I saw. Couple o' reavers, but ain't no one livin' other'n you." Serena nods and tilts her head to the side.

"Not sure if I'm happy about that or not," she says bluntly. River stands and offers her hand to Serena. She waves her off and stumbles to her feet on her own, wincing and holding her side, but otherwise alright. Mal raises an eyebrow at this little display of stubbornness and desire to hide weakness but doesn't comment. He's a little impressed to be honest. Simon is not.

"You shouldn't be moving like that," he frets, worried for his patient and rushing to her help. Serena eyes him guardedly when he approaches and River steps in front of her brother warningly. Mal surveys the two and how close they are to each other and raises his other eyebrow. Interesting. His psychic is on the new passenger's side. He doesn't know if that's a good sign or not.

"Let her be," River tells her brother sternly. "She can do it. Artificial Eyes doesn't know, but she will. She'll test herself." While River and Simon get into an argument about Serena's welfare Kaylee moves closer to the older woman and stays within reach of her if she needs it. Serena smiles a little in gratitude but shakes her head again. She manages to hold herself upright without aide. Serena stands a few inches taller than Kaylee when she straightens, holding her feet together at the heels and then perpendicular to her body, knees slightly bent to the sides.

"You okay? You're standin' a little funny," Mal mentions. Serena looks down in confusion at her feet and frowns.

"I think so. I don't know why I'm doing that," she confesses. Surprisingly Kaylee pitches in with that answer.

"Dancin'." When Serena and Mal both turn to her she blushes but grins. "I had a friend, growin' up, who wanted ta be a dancer. Ballet, mostly, but a few other types too. She always was standin' like that. Had bad feet too." She points at Serena's feet. "Goin' _en pointe_ will do that ta ya pretty quick." Serena looks even more confused at this explanation.

"If I was a dancer why in the hell was I in an escape pod with reavers?" she murmurs. River looks over and smiles.

"Dancing Warrior," she says. Mal looks at her with an exasperated expression. He's not in the mood for ambiguous responses right now but that's all he's going to get from talking to River.

"What was that Albatross?" he asks. He sees Serena glare at him out of the corner of his eye. Obviously someone knew Samuel Taylor Coleridge's work. River looks off into the distance and smiles secretly.

"A name and a metaphor for the Angel." The words have an ominous ring to them that worries Mal. What is she getting at _now_? Serena surprises him by laughing wryly.

"Damn readers," she says affectionately. "She's been lording over me how she knows more about me than I do at this point." When River glares at her Serena cocks an eyebrow and cants her hips to the side, placing her hand on the protruding area in an entirely relaxed posture.

"Door's locked," is River's reply, slightly miffed but a little hurt too. "She can hear what is behind the door. It creaks open, and she peeks inside. But Serena slams the door shut again." Serena drops her pose and sighs.

"I'm sorry River," she says a little mournfully. "I know you can't help it." River nods and looks back at her brother, who is watching Serena with his mouth open. She smiles and kisses his cheek quickly before leaping from the room, singing softly to herself. Serena rolls her eyes and smirks a little at the younger woman.

"Did you… you know what she means?" he asked. Serena tilts her head again, this time as she studies Simon, and nods softly.

"Well, yes." Serena doesn't elaborate but drifts over to Simon, still studying him carefully. "You're the doctor I take it?" she asks. He nods, still in a daze, and Serena suddenly smiles again, genuinely with true gratitude for the first time. "Thank you for saving my life." She glances back at Mal, golden eyes openly curious, and smiles at him as well, including him in the thanks.

Simon seems to snap back at her words, finally looking at her instead of fretting over his sister. "You don't remember anything?" he asks. Serena nods and shrugs.

"Yes. River's been helping me with that since I woke up." She seems completely at ease with the knowledge that she has no memory of who she once was. Mal shakes his head in disbelief.

"And you ain't havin' a heart attack or an episode or somethin'?" he demands. Serena smiles, a little wryly, at the Captain.

"Oh I did. You were on the receiving end of it, I believe." She gestures to the bruise on the side of Mal's face where her fist connected with his jaw. Mal unconsciously rubs it, grimacing at the needle pricks of pain, and narrows his eyes at her.

"You ain't lookin' so bad now," he says a little stiffly. She does seem more stable mentally now; at the very least she's not hyperventilating at the loss of memories. And she's walking around too, which after having her leg popped back into the socket shouldn't be possible. Serena shrugs to show her confusion over this fact and Simon cuts in before Mal can start berating her.

"I need to run some tests, see why you aren't remembering. Might have something to do with this," he murmurs to himself, tracing a hand near the wound hidden by her wild curls. "Do you mind coming with me so I can do that?" Serena pulls her lips up on one side in a not-quite-smile before nodding.

"Lead the way Doctor," she says. Simon doesn't though, and Serena smiles more fully when he waits to walk beside her.

"I'm going to need to take a few blood tests, make sure nothing's infected as well…" They disappear around a corner, leaving Mal staring disbelievingly after them. Kaylee, who has been oddly quiet, sidles up next to him with a wide grin on her sweet face.

"She likes you," Kaylee informs him. Mal swings around and gives her a look.

"She ain't said more than a coupla sentences to me," he pointed out. Kaylee shrugs and leans on his shoulder, propping up an arm on the ridge of his collarbone so she can look at him and smirk.

"No," Kaylee concedes. "But she looked ya in the eye. That's more'n she's done fer me an' River an' Simon." Mal doesn't know what to say to that. He didn't notice if Serena looked Kaylee and River in the eye. But he certainly noticed when she looked at him. Those bright golden eyes are a little hard to ignore when they are boring into his, rooting through him as if with one glance she can pick apart who he is. _Artificial Eyes_, River called her. He wouldn't be surprised if those bright crystalline orbs were engineered in some way. No woman is ever born with such beautiful but piercing eyes as that.

"'Sides, she was blushin' when she was talkin' ta ya," Kaylee whispers dramatically. That catches Mal's attention. He didn't notice her flushing or how she looked at him, and frankly, he's a little surprised that Kaylee did. That girl can be quite perceptive when she wants to be.

"She was?" he asks, a little uncertainly. Kaylee grins gleefully at getting this reaction from him and nods enthusiastically.

"Yeah. Brighter'n a tomato when I said that thin' 'bout her feet and you looked down. She ain't happy you were lookin' at her legs like that neither, Cap'n," Kaylee scolds him lightly.

"I ain't got a clue what you're talkin' 'bout Kaylee," Mal tells her with a faint flush staining his own skin a little. Kaylee snorts.

"When you came in," she clarifies slowly so he won't miss her words. "You were starin' at her scars and she ain't exactly happy you noticed. Got a weird look on her face fer a second there, like she were embarrassed or somethin'." Mal sighs and gives up pretending he has no clue what the young woman is talking about.

"Sorry mei-mei, I'll try an' be more careful 'bout the starin'," he teases her. She rolls her eyes and shoves away from him with the lightest of pushes.

"It ain't the starin' that's the problem; I was starin' and askin' questions an' she ain't carin' 'bout that. It's the fact that _you_ were starin' at her. I told ya, she likes ya, and she don't like lookin' bad in front of ya." Mal raises an eyebrow at his mechanic. His optimistic, romantic, a little foolish mechanic he loves dearly but sometimes wants to strangle when she sets out to set him up. He can see _exactly_ what she's doing.

"Kaylee, there ain't nothin' gonna happen between me and this girl," he informs her. "She ain't interested, she's confused 'cause there ain't a lot up here right now." He points to his head and then gives Kaylee a look when she sticks her tongue out at him for being so thick headed. "You just stick with _Serenity_ an' leave me an' her alone alright? Trust me, Serena ain't interested in me."

* * *

"Doctor Tam? How long have you been on _Serenity?_" Serena asks down in the infirmary. Simon looks up from where he has a needle attached to a vial pressed into her arm and then back down quickly.

"Close to a year now," he tells her. "Maybe a little over, I lost track up here in the Black. Why do you ask? And please, it's just Simon." Serena nods and watches as the vial fills with her blood. She isn't repulsed by the sight of the dark red liquid leaving her arm. If anything she's intrigued by what Simon's doing. She doesn't understand how this works and is curious; she wonders briefly if Simon will let her watch him examine her blood. But she has more pressing concerns on her mental tongue right now. River smiles to herself in her corner of the infirmary and ducks her head so Serena won't see.

"How well do you know the Captain?" Serena asks, going for casual and – in River's estimation – failing miserably. But Simon, of course, doesn't notice. He glances at her again before plucking the needle from her arm and capping the vial. With gentle and sure fingers he wipes the little bead blooming on her arm away with an alcohol soaked pad and puts a little more of the clear goo over it.

"Not well. I can't say as anyone really knows Malcolm Reynolds," he admits. He washes his hands and stares at the water draining into the sink. "He does things that make no sense. He took us in for one." Serena tilts her head, her braid dropping over her shoulder, eyes raking over Simon's stooped back.

"Can I ask why that's important?" she says hesitantly. Simon shakes himself and turns to her with shielded eyes. He bites his lip and she nods. "Okay. That's okay," she says reasonably. Simon sighs.

"It's not you, not really, it's just -"

"We have no idea who I am and I might be Alliance feds." River suddenly straightens as a pulse of white hot fury spikes through Serena. _White walls, steel bed, straps, blood spilling onto the floor…_ Serena blinks, surprised both at the images and at her emotions. But River isn't. She already recognized something in Serena, a kindred spirit of sorts, and the images of a place River is very familiar with don't startle her. What does is how the images are coming back already. With a sinking heart River realizes the woman across from her will only have a short reprieve from the words locked behind the mental door.

"Well… yes. Until we know who you are I'd like to keep some things from you." He's almost cruel in the words but he's scared. He doesn't know her. She might be here to take away his baby sister. For all he knows this was an elaborate trap set up by the Alliance to take back his baby sister. But River knows the truth. And how easily Serena can interpret River bothers him; half the time he can't get River to even acknowledge him, and now his little sister is running to this newcomer who understands readers so easily? It worries, annoys, and scares him. But River is only comfortably with the newcomer because she knows who Serena is.

After all, this isn't the first time she's seen the damaged woman.

"I think that would be wise," Serena says gently. "Excuse me." She wants out. She wants away because all the words are pressing against her brain and all the pictures and it's driving her insane. She wants time to think. To figure out what it is she saw in her own mind. She gets up slowly and Simon nods as he steps back. Serena drifts out, thoughts torn between the goings-on of her brain and a certain blue-eyed and confusing Captain. River watches her go and then looks at her brother with wide and troubled brown eyes.

"What is it mei-mei?" Simon asks when she doesn't look away. River shakes her head mutely and he leans towards her, catching her hand and giving it a squeeze. "River? What is it?" he presses gently but firmly.

"Broken. They broke her. Hands of Blue reach in and take, take, take. Strip her bare, stick her with needles, rip Serena from her and then dump her back into skin that no longer fits." River pauses and thinks over what she just said. Her heart races guiltily as she realizes she accidentally revealed a secret of Serena's. "Diyu. I did not mean to say that," she confesses to her brother. "Please don't tell her." Simon is confused by what she means but nods. He won't. He thinks she's talking about herself though.

She's not. River is talking about Serena's Before. A Before even Serena does not know, the very Before that started River's After.

**Hope you enjoyed! Sorry this is late, had a lot going on. FYI on the feet/legs thing; my mom was a dancer in high school/I think middle school and she's got really bad feet now. She also stands like that sometimes in the plié ready position, and talks with other people who know dancers who do the same thing. It's a force of habit after years of going en pointe and takes a while to break.**

**So anyway, hope you liked it, please tell me what you thought!**

**-Bella**

**(P.S. No Twilight comments **_**please**_**! Sorry, I kind of get that a lot…)**


	3. Impossible

**Thank you to the few but wonderful readers who wrote in! You guys are awesome and I hope this next chapter lives up to your expectations! Please keep reviewing, letting me know how I'm doing, and scream at me if I make a mistake on the fic!**

**I don't own Firefly, otherwise I'd have a sane reason for going as Mal for Halloween (which looked fracking amazing thank you! Also thanks to the flea market where I got a **

**long brown coat for pretty damn cheap!).**

**Chapter Three: Impossible**

_She's on a planet, or more specifically, she's on the white walkway of an elaborately set-up city on a planet. Right at the edge of the pristine white and elevated roads are thick green tree tops, hugging the white stone like a lost lover. It's so clean, almost frightfully so, and she finds herself afraid her feet will dirty the road as she walks. It's so quiet too, the pale sky stretching for miles on either side of her. Nothing flies across it, nothing g pierces it, no sound carries across the forlorn atmosphere. She shivers as the feeling that she is in a tomb surrounds her with icy claws._

_Serena is dressed in a thin black suit that hugs her body, flowing over her skin like liquid onyx. She wears no shoes, only the suit, and when she looks down she sees dangling from her encased fingers a black helmet. Her thick golden-amber curls are looped in a loose ponytail high on her head leaving the ringlets free to move about her face. She stares at the complex simplicity around her, knowing she must start seeking but afraid to. _Because I already know what I'll find.

_Eventually she does force her limbs to stride forward, albeit slowly. She finds her feet taking her to a small enclosed mule. The windows are dirty; she raises her glossy black hand to wipe away the dust settled there and steps back swiftly when a rotting face peers out at her. She's not afraid of the dead or she'd dream of the number of them she has created. These are not her kills and she should feel nothing for them. But upon seeing the child dead inside, tears well in her eyes and fall unheeded onto her cheeks. She wanders slowly away, dashing at her eyes with the backs of her hands._

_Serena finds more dead, children and grown ups alike. Some are merely skeletons, others are still decomposing. The air is stale but not full of the stink of rancid meat as it should be. _It's wrong,_ she thinks in disgust and horror. _They **did** something to this place.

_She's sure of this even before she finds the mutilated corpses strung on the side of a building. She turns away, pressing a hand to her mouth to keep the bile down. __**Reavers**__. The tears are so thick that she can no longer wipe them away. Serena sniffles a little and skirts back the way she came, openly weeping for these people she never knew. But there is something here that is familiar to her. A sense that there was no choice here in how these people died. She can see that other than the reaver deaths that these were peaceful deaths, but they had no choice in that. She understands that._

_When she comes back around the side of the building there is a man there waiting for her. He's tall, with dark cocoa skin and even darker eyes, warm and heartfelt if distant. He's dressed in the same dark skin-like suit as her and is holding a helmet between his splayed hands too. He's otherworldly, gorgeous in a refined and calm way, and belonging to someone else already. She knows this, but how she does, she doesn't understand. Not yet at least._

_"What happened here?" she demands across the empty space, angrily stabbing at the air with her hands to emphasize her point. "Why are these people dead?!" The dark eyes become infinitely sad and the man tilts his head in a style very similar to the way she does when she's curious about something._

_"You know this already, _Annchi._ It is why you are there and I am here," he tells her, very kindly but full of the same vague edge as River. With a jolt she realizes that he is another reader._

_"Where is 'here'?" she asks, rubbing her eyes with bruising force to stop the flow of tears. The man looks over her shoulder and becomes even more morose. She turns to look too but sees nothing. When Serena faces him again she screams in shock at the blood pouring from his mouth and chest, staining the stark white street deep crimson. It sloshes onto the grovel beneath his feet in an ever deepening pool. He starts to fall and she runs to catch him. Her fingers enclose around his shoulders milliseconds before he hits the ground. She holds him to her chest and screams her sobs to the deaf heavens above her as he bleeds out in her arms. One of his shaking hands raises to her ribs and touches her there very carefully. She jerks as a stab of pain flies through her suddenly weakening body. Looking down she sees a thin piece of wood sticking out of the bone, and when she is forced to cough, blood glimmers on her lips. Panic rises in her as the man dying in her arms raises the same hand to her face and traces it as if this is the last time for both of them._

_"Don't you know?" he whispers. A roaring is building, a braying for blood, _their _blood. Serena knows the call, knows the weapon in her side, knows how the wound in the man's chest was made. She lets him fall because he is already dead even though he still speaks to her. Serena stumbles away, wrenching the spike from her back, clutching her side with trembling fingers. She pulls on her helmet with one hand even as a body barrels into her back and knocks her to the ground. And yet the dead man still talks, white glazed eyes paralyzed in the sockets, arms bent where she dropped him, mouth no longer moving or heart pumping. She feels his words deep in her bones even as a reaver grabs her by the leg and drags her back, kicking and screaming and fighting, back to them. She hears the words as she gets away only to drop over the white walkways into the trees below._

_"Don't you know, _Annchi_? This is Miranda. This is where we die."_

Serena wakes with a jolt, wrenching up in her narrow bed with a scream on her lips. She slaps a hand over her mouth before it can fully emerge from her throat and bites down on the sinewy flesh of her fingers until she tastes blood. Once she's sure she won't scream, she curls onto her side, clutches her pillow to her face to muffle herself, and sobs. She didn't know the man - at least now she doesn't - but there is an overwhelming sense of grief clutching at her heart and tearing into her already fragile lungs. Maybe she did know him. Maybe it's her mind trying to make sense of what transpired. For all she knows she could be the gorram head of the supernatural division of the Alliance's experiments! (Though judging from her feelings on the Alliance she'd say not.)

It's a long time before she feels the insistent but muted tug of pain in her side. She cautiously sits up and pulls the blanket away from herself. Kaylee, that sweet little mechanic with the perceptive ocean blue eyes, offered her a nightgown, but it was too tight and small for her. A mix of pride and a desire to not be a burden had kept her from asking for different nightclothes so she slept naked in her bed with the door firmly locked. There's blood on the sheets, staining the otherwise creamy colored synthetic fibers, and a few black threads are sticking haphazardly from her side. With a groan Serena manages to stand, finding her dress quickly and sliding it up her lean body as gently as she can so as to not ruin the rest of Doctor Tam's work. She bundles her sheets together in a ball and heads out. She'll patch herself up and then head to the wash room to take care of the sheets before the crew wakes up. She doesn't want them to see her pain.

No one must ever see her weak.

Serena drops the bloody sheets off at the washing room first before scurrying back to the infirmary, relief flooding through her that the dress isn't stained with blood. She lifts the hem indecently high (after shuttering the windows of course) and with strangely precise hands cleans herself up. Biting her lip, she threads a needle with coarse black thread and, refusing to cry out, redoes the stitches that were ripped out. Turns out she knows what she's doing, thank God. She's done swiftly, efficiently, and is left cursing in Chinese to keep herself from reacting to the pain stabbing at her flesh. Breathing hard she cleans up her hands and bandages her side up tightly.

It's as she'd heading back down to the washing room that she pauses as the dream catches up with her. Without the drive to end her pain the dream has time and strength to take hold of her relaxed mind. Serena stares down the hallway in silence as the final words of her dream replay in her head. _This is Miranda. This is where we die._ The name is eerily familiar, as if she'd heard it before... seen that place before... She shakes herself angrily and continues walking. She's scared and that only frustrates her. She's on edge because her conscious mind managed to conjure up a nasty picture, that's all. She shouldn't even be bothered by it. _A gorram dream is not going to terrify me! _Serena thinks to herself, making her way to the washroom carefully to dispose of evidence of her weakness.

Now if only she was completely certain it was a dream.

* * *

When he goes to check on her Mal finds Serena putting new sheets on her bed, a bulge of bandages wrapped to her side, hair up in a tightly wound ponytail. He doesn't say anything, just watches as she tucks the corners in and smoothes the creases. She doesn't turn around as she says, "Bit of a problem with the last set."

"Hope it weren't too bad," is Mal's vague and sympathetic reply. Because she can lie and claim that the sheets weren't staying, or that they itched, or any other imaginary ailment but he knows. He's hidden evidence of nightmares too.

Serena turns and pierces him with those golden sun eyes and tilts her head, a habit she developed to show her curiosity or puzzlement. He notices the way the curls cling to her neck, wrap loosely around her shoulder before spilling in ringlets down to her ribs. He notices, too, the way the light makes her naturally full hair glimmer like fine spun amber threads. And how her freckles add a softness to her otherwise sharp and jagged face. "What are you hoping wasn't too bad?" she asks just as his eyes return to her face.

_Kaylee was righ', _Mal realizes in an almost daze. _She's blushin' brighter'n Kaylee at one a Jayne's jokes._ He has to force himself to refocus on her and her question. "Just hopin' your night weren't too bad, that's all," Mal mumbles. Serena blushes harder, her golden freckles standing out in sharp contrast, and shakes her head. Her ponytail whips her neck repeatedly but she doesn't seem to notice.

"Doctor Tam says that the results for my head should be final today," she says suddenly, steering them out of the awkward silence falling. "He said he should be able to tell what's wrong with me soon enough." She won't meet Mal's eyes now, staring down at her callused palms instead.

"Well, that's good, ain't it?" Mal says with feigned nonchalance. Truth be told he's not sure if that is a good thing or not. Serena gives him a reproachful look marred by her lowered lids and how she's biting the soft skin of her lip. Mal needs to look away for a second to recompose himself before he does or says something stupid, because damn it, she is just too beautiful and tempting when she does that.

"What are the odds that I am some sort of psychotic dancer with a degree in espionage?" she teases but not really at the same time. Serena laughs tightly and holds out her hands for his inspection. "Might explain all this actually." Mal leans a little closer and takes one of her hands in both of his. Cradling the digits in his warm and slightly rough palms he turns her hand before his eyes and inspects the thick calluses coating her palms. Then he flips her hand and sees the lacerations to her knuckles, years and years' worth of scar tissue beneath the pads of his fingers. Very easily identified, hitting-a-man-with-a-closed-fist kind of scar tissue.

"What was a ballerina doin' gettin' inta so many fights?" he wonders out loud. Serena clears her throat and flexes her fingers, silently asking for her hand back. She's blushing even harder now, her eyes flickering to his and then away. He relinquishes her hand with a slow smile. _Well, gǒupì! Li'l Kaylee certainly ain't blind..._

She's darting past him in a flash of white cloth and spinning hair, avoiding his gaze as she slaps her bare feet down the stairs in a rushed staccato. Mal smiles a little to himself and follows after her at a more leisurely pace. He thinks it's funny, this little crush she has on him and her reaction to it, but even he knows when to stop teasing her. He follows Serena down to the infirmary, where Simon and River are there and waiting. Simon is bent over a microscope, a frown embedded into his face. River on the other hand has a tiny smile quirking her lips, wide eyes immediately resting on Serena. The younger woman rises from where she's perched on the counter and bounds over to Serena, throwing her arms around her in a light hug. Everyone stares at the reader, Mal and Simon in shock, Serena in acute discomfort. "Um... hello?" Serena says uncertainly. Mal's behind her so he can see how her muscles are tensing the longer River holds onto her. He also gets a clear view of her toned shoulders and the expanse of silvery-white skin marred by more scars. He rather likes the view.

"Peace needs love once in a while," River informs Serena as she draws away. The men exchange a look at her words, neither understanding what River's meaning could possibly be. The older woman frowns and tilts her head, considering River. Her eyes narrow as she puzzles it out.

"Ah Diyu, River, _that was private!_" Serena snaps. River shrugs unapologetically.

"Words become loud when one is afraid," she says mildly. "Can't ignore blatant fear like that." Serena closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose, embarrassment coloring her cheeks a rosy scarlet. Understanding dawns on Mal. _River knows what she dreamed about. And she certainly ain't happy 'bout it._

"What is she talking about?" Simon interjects before Serena can chastise River as she so obviously longs to do. Serena shakes her head at the doctor, striding away from River with another glare. River looks entirely too smug for her own good; Mal gives her a look and she just smirks at him. He must have become a complete pushover if no one on his gorram ship listens to him anymore.

"Doctor Tam, with all due respect, it's rather personal. I'd rather not say," Serena murmurs, tone polite and formal. Simon raises a single eyebrow at the woman as does _Serenity's_ captain. That tone, those considerate and gently firm words with the ring of truly perfect manners, all of these is the mark of a "higher society" woman._ What's a higher standing ballerina doin' with fightin' scars and in a ship full a reavers?_

"I... I guess so," Simon acquiesces. "I'm afraid I'm going to need to rerun those tests." He gestures a little sheepishly at the microscope set on the counter. Serena tilts her head, gold eyes raking over the scene, but poses no questions.

"That's fine. Where do you need me?" she asks. Mal paces into the room after Simon helps her - or rather is brushed off when he tries to help her, even if she is courteous about it - onto the counter. She grimaces but otherwise refuses to allow herself to show any pain. River gives !al a look and nods her head at Serena with a small grin.

"The impossible stands before her," the psychic murmurs. "It stares her in the face before crumpling at her feet dejectedly. Impossible is outmatched." Mal thinks this time she's being almost obvious about her warped messages. He thinks he gets it but as always around River, he's not quite sure he does. Serena rolls her eyes in a very un-lady-like manner.

"I assure you River, I'm as human as human gets," Serena mumbles, her gaze returning to where Simon has pierced her arm with a needle. She misses River's grin but Mal doesn't. He regards his reader suspiciously. _What's got her all excited like? _Simon glances up at Serena with a disconcerted frown before turning his focus back to the vial filling with her blood. "Can I ask why you are doing this again?"

"I think my last sample got corrupted somehow. I just want to make sure that I get correct results," he tells her simply. The head tilt is even more pronounced now. River giggles to herself as if what they're talking about is hilarious news.

"So, Doc, why's she got no memory?" Mal interrupts River's laughter on purpose, tired of her being purposely vague and running circles around them. Simon sighs as Serena turns those unnerving but enchanting eyes on the young doctor.

"As far as I can tell you suffered from shock." That's not what Mal or Serena expects but River is completely unfazed. "Judging from your circumstances you thought you were going to die. That coupled with the trauma you were exposed to courtesy of the reavers and that wound to the side of your head resulted in memory loss." The two non-geniuses in the room stare at the doctor in bewildered skepticism. "I've seen it before," Simon defends. "Besides there's no brain trauma. I can't think of any other reason why you'd have such a complete memory upheaval." Serena nods but appears a little reluctant to accept that as an answer. Simon gestures for her to get down and she does so. "I'll run the new sample and get back to you on whether or not there are any problems." She nods and with a quick look at Mal, blatantly curious, she leaves. He watches her as she leaves, the sway of her slim hips and the swish of her very long hair captivating him. She's sexy in a laid back unconscious way; she has no idea that how she moves alone, with the grace and confidence of a well-trained dancer, is enough to swivel heads and mesmerize. If she did she'd have all men and quite a few women begging at her feet. No, she doesn't know. Mal actually prefers that. She's even more devastatingly attractive to him because of the lack of knowledge.

"She likes you a lot," River observes gleefully, interrupting his oggling. "You should kiss her. She needs it." Mal rounds on her with one scolding finger raised.

"You. Stay outta her head. She don't need ya crawling 'round in there right now." River sticks her tongue out at him and gives a mock salute.

"Yes Captain Daddy," she drones, dutifully walking from the room before breaking into a sprint after Serena. Mal rolls his eyes and looks to Simon pleadingly.

"You should get awards fer dealin' with your sister," he growls. "Causin' trouble righ' an' left lately." Simon is propped up across the way with his feet crossed and his head in his hands. "Doc? You okay?" Mal's never seen him this tired or this frustrated before. With his sister he has endless patience and no shortage of kindness for her. Right now though he's utterly... _defeated_ looking.

"No, no I'm not alright," Simon grits out. "That woman... whoever she is she makes no sense and I am trying to figure this out but there just isn't enough... That damn sample..." His eyes are wide and slightly frightened. Mal feels his skin prickle at the expression on the younger man's face.

"You said the sample was contaminated." There's an accusation in Mal's voice and Simon immediately starts shaking his head in a mixture of denial and defense.

"Yes, it had to be somehow because there's just no _possible_ way..." He's agitated, yanking on his dark hair, eyes begging Mal to tell him that there was dirt or some other factor affecting the sample of Serena's blood. But Mal has no inclination of doing that.

"What did you find, Simon?" It's brusque and snapped out of his mouth. If this woman is dangerous, if she can hurt his crew... He can't think of the shy and gorgeous creature he'd like to know right now, he _has_ to think of his crew and the dangers she might pose. As much as it kills him to doubt her when she needs help, as much as he wishes it didn't have to be this kind of choice, Mal has been betrayed one too many times to allow one little girl to slip under his skin.

"There is so much more than there should be in her blood," Simon finally admits. "Enzymes, compounds and substances that shouldn't be there... And white blood cells."

"Ain't we supposed ta have those?" Mal asks tightly. He's got a bad feeling brewing in his gut about this. Simon nods, hesitates, and then shakes his head.

"Yes but not to this extent. She's got so many of them by many rights she should be dead right now. An overload like that _should_ start targeting parts of the body. But that's the thing; they're not. They're almost _inactive_ for the most part." Despite his terror of the unknown Simon is becoming excited. He _likes_ being able to do research on new and exciting prospects of the medical field. His focus has been on River, of the horror of her situation, but a the scientist in him is thrilled at the discoveries he's making. He keeps describing their impossible new shipmate to the Captain. "If that sample is correct - which it can't be - then there is no possible way for her to develop an infection. Between the cells and the enzymes she should be fully healed in a few days." Mal starts at that.

"Healed, as in -"

"As in she'll have a nice white scar but there will be no wound whatsoever." Mal leans against the counter in bewilderment, staring at the younger man. He's thinking of Serena's many, many scars, burns and slashes and stabs and others. He wonders how new some of those are. They all look extremely old, but... He remembers shoving her leg back into the socket and how she wasn't even limping when she woke up. Mal doesn't know what to believe about her at this point. When the Captain doesn't add any more input, Simon continues his diagnosis. "Those enzymes... they're targeting very specific parts of her blood. Red blood cells, platelets, muscle tissue..."

"What's that mean, Doc?" Mal snaps, in no mood for even more mind games. Simon becomes more hesitant, sensing the mood of his Captain, and knowing he must tread carefully.

"Of those chemicals in her blood are what I think they are then she's strong. Much stronger than any of us." _I couldn't move her from the ship but with one twist she was tumbling out. One twist of her hips and she was falling out with a dislocated leg... _Mal's thoughts are in a snarl of words and complicated emotions as Simon hesitantly broaches another relevant point. "Mal, does she... Do you think the Alliance sent her after River?" Mal starts a little at the question, his blue eyes distant as he shakes his head.

"No. Somethin' tells me she ain't too fond of the Alliance neither. Noticing a pattern Doc?" Simon shakes his head as Mal explains his warped but oddly accurate thinking. "They make yer sis as a sort of weapon, right? Well, who's ta say she ain't the only one? Serena's been enhanced. She's a dancer, right? A dancer with fightin' scars." He pauses, testing this theory, before nodding. "Alliance had this nasty trick, durin' the war, where'd they send what looked like a nice li'l girl or boy out. We'd pick 'em up, and if we were fool enough to sleep, those cuties would gut us." Simon shudders but Mal doesn't even flinch. "Serena probably was designed to be like that."

"What makes you think that she _isn't_ a trap?" Simon demands. "For all we know she could be -"

"'Cause I found her fightin' fer her life in an escape pod with a bunch a reavers. Big bad goverment won't want their li'l darlin' fightin' and gettin' killed by reavers when she coulda been killin' rebels. And scars. Alliance won't want their precious trap covered in ugly, off-putting scars. They'd erase 'em. She got 'em after she left." Mal wants to believe what he's saying, but there are so many gaps, so many holes. And all of them fall to what Serena was like before, something they have no idea about. "Double check that blood," he orders, getting up and heading for the door. "I don't wanna be panickin' over nothin'."

"Captain? Do you... do you really think she can't remember?" Simon calls. Mal pauses and looks at him, searching his face.

"Yes," he says finally. Simon bites his lip and Mal sighs. "If she remembered, would she really have gone an' given you her blood?" With that he leaves. He can't take much more of Simon's conjecture, of super-humans and experiments, of _any_ of it. He treads back to the deserted common room and sits heavily on a sagging couch with a groan. _My ship. Why do they_ always _end up on _my _ship?_

"Because your ship feels like home," River replies quietly. Mal jumps as she comes around the corner, wide eyes sad. "And home calls to us."

"River, didn't I tell ya ta quit peekin' in people's head? Yer gonna see somethin' ya really don't like soon ya keep it up," Mal grouses. River doesn't answer that as she drifts towards him, sitting at his feet. She looks torn over something. She takes so long to talk though that Mal considers leaving.

"You were right. About Serena." River stares at her hands when Mal looks at her in disbelief. She's so quiet right now, so sad... "What she was supposed to be... and her not liking the Alliance."

"Well, that's good ain't it?" Mal asks. River shakes her head.

"You still think she's dangerous. That she wants to hurt us. She doesn't." River turns that unnerving gaze to her captain. "She... she has too good a heart for that." Mal is already shaking his head at her defense of the new woman.

"Albatross, I 'preciate you tryin' to defend her, but -"

"I knew her Before." Mal's mouth drops open and River looks away as if his shock is just too much for her. "I knew her. She hated what they made her do. They didn't like the dancing either. She liked it, so she'd do it in secret." River laughs a little and Mal stays silent, afraid he'll lose this lucid moment of River's and not hear anything else about Serena. "She got away four years ago, right when they were about to start work on me. She came back... but River had been moved. All that's left is blood and white walls. Ghosts wander, and then the floor crumbles..." Her sanity vacating the room, River gets to her feet when Mal sighs. _And she's back_, he thinks wryly. River makes to leave the room and Mal stands to follow her. Abruptly River turns back to him: body angled slightly, head tilted to the side, and thin lips pursed. "Don't tell her. There are some things she doesn't need to remember." She glares at him when he doesn't respond, so he nods in promise. With that ominous warning hanging about his mind River departs.

Mal waits a little while before leaving as well. He pushes warnings and experiments from his mind as best he can so he can focus on his crew and getting them another job. He heads to the bridge to go talk with Wash about flying them to a non-Alliance-friendly planet for some work. They've got quite a bit of money right now but that won't last long if they aren't careful.

"...And really, I just kind of wanted ta see what the fuss was about!" Wash is excitedly talking to someone about why he joined flight school. A sexy little laugh greets him and Mal's footsteps grind to a halt. _Tā mā de, really?_ Mal groans to himself. He can't seem to escape for very long. He peeks around the corner but only sees Wash in his chair. The blonde man pauses for a heartbeat before saying, "So you're a dancer?"

"That's what everyone keeps telling me," Serena replies, humor lacing her tone. Wash adopts a guilty expression.

"I'm sorry, I forgot..."

"So did I," Serena laughs. It's a lame joke, but it has the desired effect as Wash smiles at her. "Really, it's fine." She appears to be fine, or at the very least sounds it. Wash's guilty expression hasn't completely diminished which is what most likely prompts him to speak his next question.

"Think you'll get yer memories back soon?" Wash asks. Serena snorts and Mal sees her sit down across from the pilot.

"Diyu I hope not," is her prompt response. Both Mal and Wash lose their bottom jaws for a moment there. Wash recovers first.

"What? Why?" he presses. Serena tilts her head back, a soft smile and a considering look crossing her features. "Don't you wanna remember who you are?" Serena smiles gently and turns her head so her eyes meet Mal's. He flushes guiltily but that smile only becomes softer, more open. She's being so... he doesn't even have the words to describe the surge of emotion that look of hers is evoking.

"Does it matter who I was?" she asks quietly, and Mal knows she's not talking to Wash anymore. Her head tilts as she gives Mal an opening. Wordlessly he shakes his head, either in a refusal to answer or an answer in itself, he's not entirely sure which. But Serena sees something in his face, and that smile blooms brighter and with a feeling to it he doesn't even fully understand but makes this weird fluttery sensation jolt through him. Serena politely faces Wash again as he gives an answer neither one of them hears. "Excuse me, Wash, I think your Captain needs to speak with you," she murmurs as soon as he's finished speaking, rising from her seat. She exits the cockpit and Mal closes his eyes as she passes by him, a soft scent he doesn't recognize following in her wake. Something soothing and relaxed but potent. Flowery, a little sharp, but so very gentle... He has to shake himself as he comes into the room. Wash grins at Mal's face.

"She's somethin', ain't she?" Wash hints with a chuckle. Mal gives him a scathing look that only makes Wash laugh harder.

"Does yer wife know about them thoughts a yours?" Mal growls to hide his growing discomfort. Wash stops laughing and settles for a mere shit-eating grin.

"Naw, but she sure as hell knows about those thoughts a _yours_!" Wash chuckles. "I ain't seen dopey eyes like that since Simon came on board." Mal huffs indignantly at the examination.

"I ain't got dopey eyes," he pouts. "I'm just curious about her is all! Gorram woman's on my boat and she don't know gousa about herself, leavin' me to figure it out!" Wash just laughs again.

"I'm pretty sure she said she was goin' to take a shower. Could definitely find out a lot 'bout her that way," Wash teases. Mal swears and tilts his head back.

"I swear it was a mistake, lettin' Zoe marry ya," Mal mumbles. "She's been a _horrible_ influence on ya!" Wash shrugs and picks up one of the many toy dinosaurs littered around the main set of controls. He starts playing with it casually as he sneaks looks at his captain.

"So... she shouldn't be talkin' with Serena, right? 'Cause she's a bad influence?" Mal tilts his head back and glares at the blonde man, suspicions aroused at the nonchalantly interrogative tone the pilot is using on him.

"What're ya gettin' at Wash?" Mal barks. Wash shrugs again and sets down the toy in favor of a much larger one.

"Nothin'. Just tryin' to figure out how ta tell my warrior woman wife she _shouldn't_ be tewllin' Serena to jump ya. Lesson learned. Got it. No influencin' the new girl into sexin' up the captain. Do me a favor and tell her fer me, would'ja? I rather like my pecker where it is thanks."

**Okay that's it for now. **_**Before**_** I get Mary-Sue comments on Serena... Well, just hang in there. Her refusal for help should tide you guys over for now, but she's not the perfect little monster she was in the first version. Oh no. Serena in this... oops, SPOILERS! ;) Sorry, been watching **_**way**_** too much Doctor Who lately... anyway, hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think!**

**-Bella**

**P.S. My tablet's word program is really weird sometimes so if there are a ton of mistakes, I'm sorry.**

**P.P.S. I'm a little surprised no one jumped at River's description of Serena in the last chapter. Seemed kind of obvious to me... anyone got a clue who 'Serena' was? Let me know!**


	4. Wanting

**So it was brought to my attention that for whatever reason some of you can't review. This was told to me by the lovely RionaEire who promptly began telling me what she thought of the story and asking a million questions, many of which had me grinning and cheering that I had someone so interested. If you can't review please PM me your thoughts; that's just as awesome to me as reviewing because it's essentially the same thing except no one else can see it. Okay?**

**I don't own Firefly, otherwise I'd own Nathan Fillion and… yeah he probably wouldn't like that much (gorram Independent and all). Please enjoy!**

**Chapter Four: Wanting**

"I told you Thorne, we traced her to the outer edges of Cassio and then lost her! Rutting reavers attacked her ship and brought it down! Why are you hounding me on this?" Jonathon Morgan snarls at Ian Thorne, slamming the door to his refrigerator shut, one long bottle of expensive alcohol in his hands. Thorne leans back in his seat and scowls at the other man who once upon a time was a dear friend.

"She's my sister," Thorne snaps. "She ran away four years ago. I'd like to know if she's okay!" Morgan laughs bitterly and wrenches open a cabinet, slapping down a tall glass flute. He pours the liquor into the glass and sets about fixing himself a very stiff drink.

"No, she's a traitor to the Alliance who has been undermining the Academy's work for four years. We've been over this! If we found her we'd have to kill her on sight anyway!" Thorne glares at Morgan with all the hatred he can muster. "Why do you even care? You've spoken to her maybe three or four times since she was born."

"Seven," Thorne corrects automatically. Morgan grins triumphantly and points his glass at Thorne, spilling some of the bubbling liquid inside on the floor. Rage pulses through Thorne at the accusation. "How long did it take you to fall in love with Harmony anyway? A month? Three weeks?" Morgan's grin becomes a snarl.

"That was different," he says stiffly. "The Alliance _gave_ her to me, it was only practical that I -" Thorne laughs derisively at the other man.

"_Gave_ her to you? Have you _met_ my sister? Harmony would no sooner let a man own her than she would let a reaver fuck her! Or you for that matter." He smiles tauntingly, watching with malicious glee at the vein that throbs on Morgan's forehead. "Found that out didn't you? When you had to drug her that night?" Morgan's lip curls in mute fury.

"I keep telling you, I didn't know how that shit ended up in her drink..."

"And I know that's a pile of mǎ shǐ. Harmony ingests drugs that make her hallucinate and eventually knock her out, gets raped, and then you back off with a smirk? She pointed the finger right at you, Húndàn!" Morgan's lips are so thin they've turned white.

"She was _hallucinating!_ She didn't know _what_ she saw!" he snarls, throwing his champagne flute at the wall near Thorne's head. It explodes into a million tiny shards, the glass rubble and rest of the alcohol raining down around the amber-headed man's head. Thorne's golden eyes don't even twitch at the noise or the pieces of glass embedding into his flesh. With ease and utter carelessness he picks at the shards, looking at them mildly before dumping them on the ground. Tiny droplets of his blood glitter like rubies and swirl into the booze trailing across the floor in long streaks.

"Are you done throwing your temper tantrum?" Thorne asks with amusement clear in his voice. Morgan pants but doesn't reply. Thorne idly plays with a shard of blood soaked glass, slyly glancing at Morgan. "She's stronger than you. If I were you, I'd apologize - profusely - next time you see her. Because we _will_ see her again, and she _will_ kill you for what you've put her through." Morgan snorts and then bellows a laugh, so long and cold and hard it grates on Thorne's ears. He cringes at the noise and internally howls with repressed rage. He's sick of this bastard and how he played with his sisters. Morgan would still be playing with her if he could find her. But Harmony was is - pretty gorram resourceful. She's evaded them for four years, sabotaged so many different branches of the Academy the foundation is practically collapsing in itself, and she destroys other "projects" when she's not saving experiments. Revenge in the Thorne family is sacred, and Harmony had gotten hers in spades.

_"Harmony Thorne is not stronger than me!"_ Morgan snaps at Thorne when he doesn't laugh to at the supposed insanity of the notion that that woman is stronger. _And smarter_, Thorne adds silently.

The truth Morgan denies is that Harmony _is_ stronger. She was stronger when she was born and she's stronger now. Thorne's gold eyes flicker to the window. Gold eyes that are a result of the chemicals pumped into his blood every week. He had bright green eyes as a child, but once the injections started at age two, his eyes had slowly been stained each time until the effect was permanent. Morgan was the same way, only his injections started later, at age seven. Both men now need to go for their treatments every week or they will die; that's how addictive the drug becomes. But Harmony... Harmony had been _born_ with inhumanly golden eyes. She doesn't need injections because her body produces all of this naturally. Each day she grows faster and stronger. She even heals much faster than them, a surprising result no one was expecting.

_Too bad about the scars_, Thorne thinks absently. The man had seen his sister on a private newsfeed for the Alliance about two years ago. In it she'd been wearing a black suit he had never seen before as she battled reavers on a ship far out in the Black. During the struggle her suit had been torn revealing numerous scars across her body. Thorne had felt bad in an obscure way for the damage done to her but he had been proud as well to see his sister fighting back. Morgan had been revolted that she was no longer perfect. It had actually been a fairly amusing seen.

"Rènhé Morgan. You keep telling yourself that," Thorne sighs, rising from his seat and making his way from the room. It saddens him that he's lost so much; he and Morgan used to be best friends. But after Harmony was raped close to five years ago he hadn't been able to stop hating the light haired man he'd once called friend. He'd done his fair share of... _rough_... sex with women. But the look on Harmony's face, the way the normally confident and outgoing dancer became a recluse to avoid everyone (but especially her attacker), had made him feel sick. And there was Morgan, smug that he finally gotten to feel her wrapped around his cock whether she was willing or not.

When she'd begun to heal it was because of Serena. And after Serena was murdered... Thorne tries to shake the image from his head but can't. His little sister got ahold of a knife and stabbed at her wrists until survival, even with her advanced abilities, seemed improbable. It was only because of those abilities that she was still here among the living at all. The murder - because despite what anyone said at the time the way they did it was murder - had nearly driven Harmony insane. She'd gone between bouts of rage and severe depressions. After she tried to kill herself the scientists in the Academy had decided she was too dangerous a subject to keep around. That's when her "brothers" came for her and sprung her from the cell they were keeping her in.

And that's when Thorne let them.

Thorne doesn't truly know Harmony. Oh, sure, he knows the _superficial_ things, the parts of her everyone knows: her love of dance, her stubbornness, her firm beliefs in what is just and what is evil (and that the Alliance and Academy fall into the latter), her shocking help of the Independent Army, and her work with the other experiments. But if asked he can't tell you about her. He doesn't know any likes of hers that don't annoy the government; he knows nothing of how she grew up on the fringes of the Black; he doesn't know if she is strong, or loving, or shy, or angry, or hateful, or confident, or all of this combined together in a confusing melee of emotions. He has talked to her seven times and seen her even less. The few times they met were when they had coinciding appointments at the Academy or were together at the odd party. Harmony had treated him as a stranger, which in many ways, he is to her. Thorne grew up with Morgan and his family, Harmony surrounded by servants (he knows vaguely that she considers them family but no details on the subject). They are as far apart as any acquaintances can be.

But then the Academy had "given" her to Morgan to further the experiment. As one of three remaining in this particular sect of the experiment, being the only female subject, and having one male as her blood kin, Morgan became the logical choice. None ever dreamed that Morgan would assume that meant "rut whenever it pleases you." They thought that Harmony and Morgan would wait until the Academy was ready for that particular part of the experiment. Harmony was more than ready; Morgan was not. His disgust and fury with Morgan when Harmony had been found had taken him by surprise. He hardly knew the young woman, what did it matter to him if she was humped? With the way she dressed and her personality - bashful yet oh so inviting - he should have been surprised that it had been so long for a man to take her. Besides, this was his best friend; she must have been too much of a tease for Morgan to handle. The vile excuses did not sit right with Thorne though, and his temper and revulsion with a man he once called brother only festered darkly in his mind. He'd been the one to find Harmony with her wrists slashed and bleeding to death on the floor of her cell (to avoid further incidents the scientists had devised to "remove temptation" from Morgan. The irony that the victim was locked up instead of the criminal was not lost on Thorne).

He barely knows Harmony, but not once has he thought of her as weak. Until that day. She'd been so pale, surrounded by scarlet liquid, eyes shuttered and barely breathing... she'd been a living corpse. By all rights she should have died. His _sister_ had tried to kill herself. The sudden, over whelming, over powering urge to protect this fragile goddess had rushed through him as he held her limp form in his arms. He wanted to know her in that moment. In that moment he'd regretted never bothering to truly meet the only blood-related family he had. He'd stayed in her room after the paramedics came in, frozen by this newfound desire, and looked around him. At the journal on the floor, so immersed in blood that when he picked it up a steady stream of viscous liquid poured out between the pages. At the single photograph on her nightstand of her with a large number of people he doesn't know all smiling and elated. At the pair of ballet shoes hanging on the wall in her silent display of rebellion. And he'd been horrified at himself, for forgetting her for so long, and blinded by rage with Morgan for tearing her apart like this.

Morgan pauses in his walk to pull the journal out of his pocket. The photo from her room sticks out of the top of the leather-bound book as a book mark. He's read the gorram thing so many times he can recite it and yet he still doesn't know her. It's entirely about Serena. About when Harmony heard her for the first time. About the significance of her name. About Harmony's excitement at the date where she could finally meet her. And then black, ugly words about the people who murdered her. Words about pain and desperation. And then the most surprising line on the last page, the page soaked in the most blood and cracking at the edges, the page Thorne has yet to understand. _You don't own me anymore,_ is written in her precise cursive at least a hundred times if not more. To this day he doesn't know what it means or who she's talking about.

Shaking his head at both his own stupidity and his apparently insane little sister, he carefully tucks the journal back into his coat pocket, one he had specifically designed for just this precious artifact, and keeps walking. He bypasses a stately garden, several different simulators, and hundreds of rooms filled with all kinds of rich wonders. Why the Academy thought it was a good idea for Morgan to be with Harmony he has no idea. At the very least, Morgan has opulent - and rather greedy - tastes; when he saw Harmony one of those few times she'd just come back from working on her farm with the dozens of servants, covered in dirt and red cheeked from the cold wind, in threadbare hand-me-downs. Maybe he doesn't know her tastes per say but he knows this lavish display of old money makes her uncomfortable despite her background.

Thorne wants more than anything to take Harmony away from this horrible life she's creating for herself and take her somewhere safe. He wants to take her where she will never have to see the Academy or the Alliance or gorram Independents or Morgan or reavers or another freak courtesy of the Academy. She deserves so much more. And despite what Morgan says she's alive. Harmony has proven in the past that she is too gorram stubborn to let herself just die.

Thorne makes his way down to the cells in the basement, walking straight past cowering prisoners and furious experiments. One, a fiery telekinetic, tries to throw one of the lights on the wall at him. He ducks because this is not the first time she's done that and has come to expect her outbursts, and with no clear emotion visible on his face he presses a little blue button beside her cell. She screams in mortal agony as pulses of sound and electricity are brutally shot through her, contained only by the thick glass walls of her cell. Thorne doesn't even flinch at the noise. If she didn't want to get hurt she wouldn't be so idiotic as to use parlor tricks on him. Now that boy Harmony knows, Nathan Riis, is one telekinetic Thorne doesn't want anywhere near him. Seemingly wild and out of control, Nathan Riis is the strongest telekinetic they've ever designed. He is not much stronger "physically" than the average experiment but his sense of focus makes him a deadly weapon. Too bad they don't know where he disappeared to during the war.

The light haired man makes his way down the line of cells to stand before the last one on the left. Inside is a girl, no older than fifteen, naked and bleeding from numerous cuts. She stares at him with blank eyes that can no longer feel. She is not receptive to pain anymore, nor kindness, nor any other sort of emotion. Her mind is essentially gone - an experiment finally done right. Here is the package that gorram Independent dropped off... what was his name? Arnolds? Ryan? Reynolds? Something stupid like that. Thorne hates Independents and wishes fervently he'd been allowed to kill the man on sight and just _take _the package. But Morgan warned him a man who does a job without question was too valuable to waste, and since Morgan said it... He's not sure who he'd like to kill more, the bastard against his government or the bastard he lives with.

Thorne drops down in front of the broken creature in a light crouch, forcibly turning her head up to look at him. He presses too tightly on her jaw by accident and a soft cracking sound can be heard ringing through the cell. Neither party even winces at the noise. "I want you to find someone for me," Thorne tells her in a low voice. She gives no sign that she hears him, no blinking, no fear or pain. But she does; she's a machine who will do as she's told with no complaint. Thorne reaches into that special pocket and withdraws the picture of his sister on the farm. In the picture she's grinning, golden eyes wide, amber-gold curls wild about her face, dressed in a thin light blue sundress. No scars are yet present in the photo. Thorne taps on the picture of his sister to draw the creature's attention and then thrusts the photo in her face.

"I want you to find Harmony Thorne."

* * *

Kaywinnet Lee Frye is a sweet girl with a good heart and a gentle, if excitable, mind. In some ways though Kaylee is a little simple. Don't misunderstand; the girl is intelligent by far. She sees things in people that seem to be hidden to everyone else, notices details that allow her to form a clearer image of a person's character, and when it comes to engines she's the smartest person there is. But when it comes to people who want her as much as she wants them, romantically and emotionally, she can't see straight. Kaylee wants Simon Tam so much it hurts her to even think of him at times. Yet for all the 'verse she can't see that he wants her just as passionately, possibly even more so.

Simon Tam, for his part, is scared to want Kaylee. He's afraid that if he lets himself care about her - if he lets himself become immersed in a relationship with her - there will be mo one for River. So he bottles up his need for her and pretends he does not feel so much. He fumbles with talking to her, with explaining himself to her, and holds himself at a distance. He throws himself into caring for River and acts as if he can't feel that burning passion for the young and beautiful mechanic. Simon has never had so much to lose, his sister and the girl he loves, and the thought fills him with dread. In his mind he can't possibly protect both the way they deserve and Kaylee... Kaylee deserves so much more than him, with his inability to return her affections and his past with the Alliance always making him a target. So he shutters his heart around her in the hopes she'll eventually forget about him and move on.

Kaylee watches as Simon takes the stitches out of Serena's side. The blood sample and his analysis was correct of course. Serena has a shiny white scar beneath the black threads. She doesn't say anything as the doctor removes the stitches. Her lips are pressed into a thin line and there's no head tilt. To anyone else she looks stoic. To Simon she looks thoughtful.

Kaylee knows she's scared. Maybe it's the look in her golden eyes or the muscle jumping in her jaw but Serena is terrified of this ability of hers. She hides it well but Kaylee sees it. Just as she sees Serena's lingering looks at the captain and the wistful twitch of her mouth when she flushes at him. Kaylee knows Serena wants trhe captain something fierce. Of course there's the captain's want of Serena too. Each time he sees her there's an expression of inceedulois lust on his face, as if he knows he wants her but he can't fathom where this crippling desire has bloomed from. Once one of them makes a move - Kaylee's guessing by the end of the month they'll be sleeping together - the rest will be ancient history so long as Mal doesn't hump it up. The young mechanic sighs. _Everyone's got someone,_ Kaylee thinks morosely. _Except me._ If someone were to tell her that Simon was thinking along the same vein as her as he glances at Kaylee repeatedly over his shoulder she wouldn't believe them. But that's the fact of life. No one sees what they most want, especially if it is right in front of them.

So there the two remain, wanting and pining, but never once reaching for what they desire.

* * *

Jayne Cobb is a selfish húndàn who cares nothing for anyone or anything except himself, his whoring, money and violence. Or at least, on the surface of him that's all he cares about. He doesn't like people to see what he truly cares about.

Currently Jayne is holding a letter from his mother between his fingers and trying not to cry. His sister's "damp lung" has gotten worse; even with the money he sends to his mother after every job they can't afford to consistently get the medicine necessary for his mei mei. Jayne has a picture of his baby sister hidden in his bunk, back from when she was three years old and had a mop of dark hair hiding her spectacularly green eyes. Allison has since grown into a fine young woman a few years younger than River. But she's not doing well; the worse the illness gets, the less she can do, and the harder it is for her to breathe. If they can't find some way to take care of her soon she'll drown in her own fluid-filled lungs.

Jayne's not thinking about how he can go start a fight or go pester the new girl into sexing him, something he oddly has no interest in with her. She's like River, dangerous and messy. He has no interest in getting involved into any more messes thanks, not even to get himself laid. But they'll probably be more messes just because she's here and Mal likes her. As long as he gets out of this in one piece with enough money to take care of his sister than all will be well for him.

The vast amount of money they made this last job - and his substantial cut - will tide his family over for a few more months, but they need another job and soon so he can send more. He wants Allison and his mother to be all right. He wants them to have so much more than they do have. It's why he left home in the first place.

Jayne has a deeper want than he'll let himself admit, deeper even than the rest of his complicated emotions. Staring at this letter, praying so gorram desperately for more for his mother and baby sister, deciding how he could possibly ask Mal for more money without letting onto the situation... all of that is leading into that desperate, childlike want all humans carry somewhere in themselves in some form.

Jayne wants to go home.

* * *

Wash is lying to beside his wife, trying to catch his breath after a good two hours of hot passionate lovemaking. Both sets of skin, pale and dark, are coated in a sheen of sweat and neither heart is going to be slowing anytime soon. Wash presses a kiss to Zoe's temple and wraps an arm arund her to hold her tighter to him. Zoe lets loose a contented sigh and snuggles evren closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder. No one would suspect that Zoe is an after-sex cuddler, but she is. She loves being held after sex with her husband. She loves letting go of the last of her warrior exterior and being _his_ Zoe for a few precious moments.

This moment however, content as they are, are brimming with excitement.

They'd been purposefully careful since they were married, and before, but this last time they hadn't been careful. Not at all. No protection whatsoever while Zoe was at a certain stage where no protection could have disastrous unwanted results... or a little miracle, if done on purpose. This was done on purpose. Zoe and Wash are trying for a baby.

Wash is still leery of having a baby right now, particularly since their situation isn't going to be changing anytime soon. But maybe that's what finally made him decide to tell his wife he's ready when she's ready. If they wait until their situation changes there's a chance that they'll never have that precious little combination of the two of them. And his wife isn't the only one who'd like to see that beautiful baby.

Zoe turns in his arms and lays a hand over his cheek, a bright smile breaking out across her full lips. There's a light shining in her eyes as she gazes at her husband, hope and love and nerves all tangled together in the deep pools of her dark irises. She almost can't believe that they are finally trying for a baby. A baby! Mal is going to be furious at first when she finally is pregnant but God she doesn't even care at the moment. He'll come around, she knows it. But she wants to meet that child; to hold it in her arms and cradle it to her breast. She wants to see her husband's bright baby blue's staring out of their baby's face, with the same care-free humor and lovely gentle edge to the irises.

Wash curls his arm over his wife's waist and rests his hand against her taught and muscled stomach. Of course there's no sign of life yet; they only started trying for a baby a few days earlier, a little before Serena made her way onto the ship. Even if there _is_ a tiny little thing growing in her womb they won't know for several months now. But the motion, the meaning behind his gesture, is so intimate and caring that Zoe's smile becomes a beaming look. She is utterly brilliant and beautiful just the way she is right now, a warrior goddess sprawled beside her husband, holding her breath at the thought of the baby possibly being created beneath her skin and his caressing fingers.

All they have to do to get what they want is be patient.

* * *

_"Pond!" River looks up crossly at the girl flouncing down the pathway to her, weaving between the flowers and shallow coy ponds around the vast emerald yards around them. She can't really be called a girl; at nineteen Harmony Thorne - or Annchi Riis as she introduces herself much to the facilities annoyance - has such old looking golden eyes that she can easily be mistaken for double her age. The bright smile on her face is as false as possible. She doesn't smile like that when she's happy; when Annchi is happy her golden eyes become sparkling jewels awash in warmth and love. Even at a distance she can see the golden orbs are dull and flat. River's annoyance fades as Annchi raises her arm to wave and River sees the bandages thickly wrapped around her wrist. The twin set of bandages is visible when she hurries down the path and the rest of her comes into view. "There you are! I've been looking everywhere for you!" She comes to a screeching halt beside River, gracefully tucking sculpted legs beneath herself. "How are you Pond?"_

_"What happened? Why are there bandages on your wrists?" River asks immediately. Annchi smiles and ducks her head modestly. But River can see the fury etched into every plane of her sharp face beneath the beautiful smile, and she knows that the rumor isn't true. Annchi didn't try to kill herself. That fury is the fury of a woman with purpose, not the despair of a woman who has had her end thwarted._

_"I keep telling you Pond. They don't own me." She glances down at her wrists thoughtfully. "I made damn sure that they don't." River hesitantly broaches the issue that ways darkly over the Academy._

_"Annchi... is Serena...?"_

_"She's dead, River. Let it go." The shortness in Annchi's voice tells River the depth of her grief. Suddenly the fury makes sense._

_"Did the doctors do it? The doctors here?" River asks timidly__.__ Annchi snorts at her innocence and gestures in the affirmative. "But they're so kind and gentle… they would _never_… not unless you wanted… But you didn't…"_

"_Doesn't matter what I wanted Pond. I keep telling you that. So long as they thought I was their property they could and would do whatever they wanted to keep me docile and ready for another bout of testing." Annchi makes a noise of disgust. "Too bad their brains aren't as big as their pìgus or else they might realize that they can't own people, no matter how much fèiwù they pump into us." She shakes her head and reaches into her pocket for a pack of cigarettes. Ignoring the look River throws her she lights one and inhales deeply before leasing a stream of foul smelling smoke._

"_You shouldn't do that," River admonishes. Annchi rolls her eyes and stamps out the cigarette with her bare foot, a plume of smoke enveloping the appendage._

"_Jesus, I can't even _start_ a bad habit around you can I Pond?" she teases lightly, wrapping an arm around River's shoulders and giving her an affectionate squeeze. She draws away almost immediately, never one for physical displays of affection. "Don't worry, I didn't plan on letting myself get addicted anyway. They taste pretty nasty." River could question why she'd do it those few times then, but she doesn't. Annchi is always looking for another way to piss off the Academy officials. Since there's a strict no smoking rule she of course would smoke right where they could clearly see her. She's been like that ever since she was forced to start living on the grounds instead of on her precious farm._

"_When are you going to stop calling me Pond?" River asks in annoyance, crossing her arms of her adolescent chest. Annchi smiles and leans over to bump her shoulder against River's._

"_You know when," is her ambiguous reply. Her smile fades and she brushes a lock of hair off of young River's face with all the careful control she has spent years mastering. "You'll understand why I tell you this eventually sweetheart. I promise you, you'll truly be River once you understand." Annchi's gaze flitters out over the grounds._

"_But what if I never understand?" River asks in frustration, pouting adorably. Annchi laughs abruptly, her sour mood evaporating and that real laugh River dearly loves tumbling sweetly from between her lips. River can't stay upset when Annchi laughs. It's infectious, beautiful, otherworldly and completely human all at once._

"_A genius like you? You'll understand, don't worry. Just be patient," Annchi teases her, touching River's bottom lip swiftly to force it back into a normal position. Annchi glances back at the house and sighs. "They'll want me back soon. I'm only allowed out for twenty minutes or so at a time." The phrase sends a chill down the little girl's spine. The way Annchi sometimes phrases things completely confuses her. She will be so sweet and caring and then say something like… _that. _A horrible jumble of words that make the most awful images fly into River's mind. She curls closer into herself as if to shield herself from the bombarding pictures tumbling around inside of her. Annchi touches River's hair gently, a fleeting caress, before straightening. With the sunlight as a backdrop to her thin figure she looks like a fairy creature: her hair afire, her muscles highlighted, the permanently loving expression she carries for River, and her sharp, alien beauty all pressed into firm reality._

"_My brothers are going to get me out of here," she says without warning, the slightly husky but melodious voice reaching River's ears. "Tonight. I want you to come with me. I can make sure you get home, River." Tender and loving. That's all Annchi Riis is with River; a tender and loving older sister. She's only known her for a few months but she'd like to know her for longer. River feels her eyes widen in surprise seconds before the tears pool._

"_You're leaving?" she whimpers. Annchi nods slowly, stricken at this emotional response. "But why? This place is… amazing!" River has disregarded everything else Annchi has said in favor of what brought her here originally. The notion of leaving is completely foreign to her. She sees Annchi bite her lip to hold back her emotions, to keep that soft part of herself locked up where no one can bruise it, even as it is injured every single day just by being hidden. There is such a thick wall around her heart it would take someone of enormous strength to beat through it._

"_Please Pond," the older woman begs. "Come with me!" River vehemently shakes her head._

"_No, you need to stay," River says stoutly. "It's only logical considering you're condition that you -" Annchi presses her fingers against River's mouth until the girl shuts up before chuckling softly._

"_Don't ever let them change you sweetheart. When I see you again I want to see that logical, pushy, irritating brat I met. Alright? It's either that or I want to see River." She brushes sunlight-streamed-through-amber-onto-a-field-of-wh eat curls off of her face and behind her ears. "Dong ma?"_

"_I don't understand why you 'need' to go!" River says, feeling her lips tremble as the sobs threaten to start. Annchi sighs and tilts her chin, golden eyes searching River's wide chocolate brown irises._

"_River, I want you to call me if you need me. Hǎo? I want you to sing that song I taught you and if you need me, you find a way to contact me?" She waits until River nods. "Don't forget what I taught you mei-mei. I'll find you. I promise you that." She's gone even as River mumbles the words Annchi taught her under her breath:_

_**Hope is an excuse to stop breathing. Love is the pen that will rewrite the ending**_.

River wakes up instantly, a mere gap between when her eyelids are closed and when they are opened existing for a single space in time. She sits bolt upright in bed and begins the search for her clothes. She'd forgotten about that day on the "Academy's" grounds. _Annchi_ had gone "missing" that night. River wouldn't see her for another four years.

River makes her way out of her bunk and into the main area of the ship. Words float around everywhere, bombarding her skull in all directions. But it's a specific set of words she carries within her heart that she is listening to, not the words pounding in her skull. She repeats the line from her memory-dream over and over under her breath so she won't forget them again.

She forgot so much while the Academy was rooting through her brain and making her into the "perfect" weapon. One such thing had been to call for help in the most able source instead of her brother. Her sweet, sacrificing, way out of his league brother who doesn't even realize they've been on _Serenity_ for over two years now because he still thinks it's only been a little over a year. Serena – or she should call her _Annchi_ because Serena didn't exist yet – had known though. She'd come looking for River for two years. Simon didn't remember but the group of "men" that had assisted him in getting River out also consisted of a woman with wild curls and spectacular golden eyes. She had made sure that River was safe with Simon and the rest of _Serenity's _crew before leaving her again. _Annchi_ had more to deal with than one lost reader. And to be frank, until she had gained more control of her mind, River hadn't remembered her much either.

River treads carefully through _Serenity_ in search of the dancing warrior. She wants to tell her about the memory but knows she can't. Serena isn't ready to become three people yet; Harmony Thorne and Annchi Riis will have to wait to start lending their respective memories to the damaged woman. River still wants to tell her.

_I'm not weak and easily destroyed anymore_, she decides. _I'm strong and swift and can kill or save depending on my mood. I'm a real River now. That's what you meant all those years ago. But I can't tell you, can I? _River stops outside the engine room, where Serena is chatting with Kaylee and thinking of Mal. She lingers and watches the older woman, waiting for her presence to be known.

_I can't tell you because that's the one thing you _don't_ want. You don't want to know that you aren't Serena._

**Okay, that's it for now! I don't want to accidentally spoil anything so I'm going to get off right quick. I will say this though (because I know it's confusing); Serena, Harmony and Annchi are all the same person. These are just different names for her and they will be very important later. Okay, please review (unless you can't by which I mean PM me) and let me know what you think!**

**-Bella**


	5. Trigger

**Okay, got like one review, very depressing actually, not going to bug the hell put of you guys mostly 'cause I'm too tired of asking/not receiving to really care anymore. I like this story so I'm sticking with it despite lacking in the popularity department. Okay? Okay!**

**Now, I got a couple of questions and statements from said reviewer. **

**Numéro Un: Why is Thorne still living/working with Morgan if he hates him? Sorry guys, there is an actual explanation for that which is part of the plot so I can't tell you... Again, sorry, but I promise it will come out.**

**Numéro deux: River needs to tell Serena pronto about what's going on. See, she's got a reason for not doing that, which is again, part of the plot. I agree, River open your big, not so good with secrets mouth! But I talked with her and she says she can't for personal reasons. Besides, everyone screws up; in trying to be a good friend, she's screwing up (I woulda thought I got a lot of hate because Serena/Annchi left River at the Academy but I didn't... you people are weird... and yes that's important later).**

**Numéro Trois: The name thing. Harmony Thorne is her birth name. Annchi is a nickname - it's the Chinese name for 'Angel' - that she preferred to Harmony. And River, for the sake of keeping Serena from remembering who she is and giving her a new start to an otherwise wickedly crappy life, renamed her so she has a choice later on "who" she wants to be. Crap, shouldn't have said that... Whatever. **

**If you read, enjoy. If not, what the hell are you doing on this chapter anyway?**

**Chapter Five: Trigger**

"River, honey, get back here!" Mal glances up from where he's conversing with Zoe on their latest job to see Serena chasing after River, who happens to be holding what appears to be a pair of pants. He raises an eyebrow as Serena races past him with a grimace for an apology, not able to slow down if she wants to lose the pants. Zoe tilts her head to watch them, a faint smile gracing her full lips.

"Serena is there a reason why River is stealin' yer pants?" the older woman asks jovially. Serena pauses long enough to roll her eyes before continuing after the reader. Zoe chuckles at the exasperated younger woman and follows the pair with her eyes, affection in her gaze.

"She won't be a girl," River shouts. "She insists on being a man. She needs to be a woman." Serena, not even breathing hard, translates immediately for the rest of the crew. They all find it easier when she doesn't hesitate with that. It's solved more than enough problems.

"She wants me to wear that new dress Kaylee got me. Sweetheart dresses are completely impracticle for working on the ship!" Serena hollers at her little "sister". River only giggles and Mal has to laugh at the girl and the woman racing about his ship. They make quite an interesting pair; mothering Serena and a tad wild River. Serena's had her hands full with that girl since day one oon _Serenity_. Mal watches the long-legged and raw beauty, eyes raking iver her delicate frame, admiring the bunch and stretch of powerful muscles below silvery-white skin, in awe of the tangle of beautiful bronze curls flying about her angular face...

"Sir? You wanna put your tongue back in your mouth so we can finalize this plan a yers?" Zoe asks, clear amusement in her voice. He turns to glare at her and she smirks. "Gotta admit, it's adorable when the two a you do that. Mighty adorable some would say-"

"River, _seriously_?!" Serena's indignant huff resounds through the cargo bay and the captain and the first mate look up just in time to see Serena launch without thought off of one railway towards the center of the cargo hold. She sails easily through the nothingness separating her from the floor and a grisly fate, curls caught in the motion of air about her body and her shirt rising to show scarred skin. She's so graceful, so angelic in this moment as she catches hold of her pants where River threw them over the open room. Serena looks every bit the dancer she is. Yet Mal's heart clenches in fear as he watches her, lungs constricting on a breath that won't expel, because if she misses the other catwalk... if she falls... if she gets hurt...

She doesn't though. Of course not; Serena lands with catlike grace on the opposite catwalk, poised on her toes with her arms thrown out to either side of her in a dancer's pose. Even from ao far below Mal can see that she's surprised at the gentle landing, blinking in shock. She's still relearning her abilities, slowly, without much confidenve in herself regarding them. The woman is completely disbelieving of what she is capable of and feels the nagging need to prove to herself that this is, in fact, her reality. River is remaining tight lipped on what was done to Serena and as for the woman herself, she's wary of the truth, of the secrets hidden in the murky depths she's keeping firmly locked. Mal guessed this within the first two weeks of her arrival; at two months in she finally told him her feelings. After much duress. With lots of alcohol. And after the hang over the next morning she is rather leery of that as well.

"Serena! What did I tell ya 'bout jumpin' all over the place?" Mal roars at her, the mixture of fear and relief quickly spiking into anger at her recklessness. Serena's bewilderment becomes a soft smile, but there's a wicked gleam in her eyes as she leans over the railing to look him in the eye. Blue meets gold and clashes in a heady storm of fire and passion, surpressed only by wanuping reason and distance. Mal shivers and tries to remind himself that sexing the new woman would be a very bad idea. A _very_ bad idea. A dark, bad, wild, _naughty_ idea... gorram it, she does it again, corkeling into his brain and rutting up the place. And she _still_ has no idea what she's doing.

"That it's better than getting into a fight with Jayne? Or was it wrecking the cargo bay...?" That impish light hasn't faded from her eyes yet, and Mal groans aloud much to Zoe's gleeful amusement. Usually he's internally delighted; not many women talk back to him like this. Zoe's one, but Zoe is Zoe. Kaylee sometimes does but there's more of a sisterly feel to her sarcasm. And Inara... there was something about the way Inara would pick fights with him that could be considered teasing but overall it was taxing. Serena is only being playful if a bit challenging. She pushes but she relents easily with a blush and a shy smile. She seems to like goading him into banter and seeing who wins the round. It's easy, light, and Mal loves every second of it. Except on this. On this Mal still feels his heart racing at the thought that Serena could have fallen and hurt herself. This feeling, this overpowering sensation that he _has_ to protect her, is confusing and daunting. He's never felt this way about anyone before. It's utterly ridiculous too; it's not his job to protect her, and besides, it's not like she _needs_ it.

"I ain't gonna argue with ya on the logistics! No more jumpin'!" Mal is ordering her, and he realizes too late how bad an idea that is. Serena's eyes flash dangerously and she leans over the railing, long hair trailing over her shoulders and swirling over empty air. For one wild second he expects this willful and slightly wild young woman to vault herself into empty space again just to prove a point. She's done things like that before to prove a point. But Serena backs away with a mock salute and a cold look on her face.

"Yes, Captain," she says briskly. "Excuse me. I promised Jayne I'd spare with him." She exits quickly before Mal can call her back. In frustration he swears in Chinese, rapping his hand against his holster. _Goin' from one gorram thing t'another,_ he thinks bitterly.

"You were askin' fer it, sir," Zoe says, going back to the plans but quietly watching him. "You know how she gets." _Yeah, probably better'n anyone_. Yes, everyone on this boat knows how Serena is about orders. She hates them with a fiery passion and will do anything, even harm herself, to show she is not anyone's property.

"Angel spreads her wings," River says, loudly enough that Mal looks to her. Her face is unreadable as she looks after Serena. "Doesn't make sense, what her wings touch. Looks at the bars and doesn't understand." Her words send a shiver down Mal's spine. Everyone knows when she talks about _Angel_ now she means Serena. But bars? What is this about bars? "Words don't align right. Don't form sentences. Make meaningless phrases. Just feels." She hops up onto the rails and tiptoes around the edges. She's lost in her own thoughts again, whatever those are. River twirls elegantly and lands back onto the railway, dancing away lightly after her sister.

"One a these days I'm gonna figer out the people on this boat," Mal mutters to his first mate. She only rolls her eyes and highlights out a flaw in the plan that he missed the first time. His first mate is much smarter than he is in retrospect. She's counting on keeping her mouth shut and letting the 'verse _finally_ gift this man with something he deserved.

Either that or the 'verse was going to have to deal with her when she died. She was fairly sure the 'verse was going to come through.

Mal sat with a cup of "coffee" between his hands, nervously tapping his leg up and down on the hard floor. It was dark; _Serenity_ was set for night mode and everyone was asleep. Or was supposed to be. He was praying one person wasn't. But he hadn't seen her since he berated her, and he was hoping that she wasn't –

Serena's head cants through the doorway, her wet curls draped around her face as she peers in. She has the same nervous, slightly sick look of disappointment on her face as he feels churning in his guts. But when she sees him she breaks into a smile, ducking around the archway and making her way to the table. There's a blush staining the part of her face he can see, and he grins at seeing that familiar aspect of her. Serena sits down next to him, hands folded in front of her, hair still hiding her from complete view.

"Wasn't sure if you were gonna show," he blurts without thinking. Her blush deepens and he curses himself for being so stupid. Why can't he just bottle the idiocy he feels around her inside, away from her where she won't have to deal with it, so she can –

"I'm sorry. River was having a hard time falling asleep again and it was my turn." Simon had taken quite a while to trust that Serena wasn't going to be turning them into the Alliance and taking his baby sister away from him. Serena takes care of her as well as Simon, and between the two of them she has become much easier to be around. It also affords Simon the opportunity he needed to pursue Kaylee more actively. Both parties seem rather pleased with that little development.

"Academy again?" Mal grimaces. Serena looks guiltily at her hands and shakes her head.

"No, it's what she's picking from my brain again," she admits quietly. She's wringing her fingers brutally, so hard that he can see the tips of her fingers turn red while the rest of her hand turns white. Mal leans forward and catches her hands between his to make her stop. She startles, jerking a little in her chair, and her fingers go limp between his. She looks up at him, her hair falling away in her surprise. Mal is still looking at her fingers, tracing the abused digits between his callused fingers. Her fingers are nearly as rough as his, three months aboard _Serenity _only serving to thicken her already toughened skin. But he likes the strength in the graceful and slender fingers, likes how the rest of her hand is silky and soft. It's such a wonderful representation of the woman these hands belong to; so hard and tough on the outside but so gentle in other areas.

"Serena, it's not your fault," he tells her fingers gently. She sighs.

"I wish I could shut it off," she admits, tilting her head to the side and frowning. "But I hate those damn sleeping meds Simon gives me. I feel sick when I wake up." He can see out of the corner of his eye that she is warping her lips to the side in disgust, and he chuckles a little bit at the memory. That had been an interesting experience only because at the same time she was trying sleeping medication was the point where they found out she had to have a certain amount of exercise each day or she'd be ill. That was definitely a bad week.

"Well, ta be fair, you hadn't done anythin' all – Aw, damn it, Serena, what the hell happened ta yer face?" Mal bites out, leaning forward to cup her jaw with one hand. She doesn't shy away from the touch but he can see the uncertainty in her clear golden eyes. From the bottom of her jaw to the top of her cheek is a long black bruise. At her cheekbone is a nasty yet small gash, no longer bleeding but only just stopped.

"I um, I didn't duck fast enough," she murmurs, letting Mal inspect her face. "Jayne caught me with a right hook and I sort of… hit a wall." She winces when his finger traces over the edges. "It'll be gone in a few hours." Mal sighs in frustration.

"Jesus, Serena," he murmurs. "You didn't do this on purpose did you?" She looks indignant and backs away from his touch, crossing her arms across her chest. Her barely covered, mostly exposed by the strappy tank-top she prefers to wear for pajamas, chest. Suddenly he's hyper aware of the fact that she is in nothing but a pair of boxers and a tank top, still wet from her shower and smelling freshly of lavender (as he discovered was the mysterious scent), and she is daring him with her golden eyes to push her. Only now he's not sure how he'd push her given the chance.

"What? Because you yelled at me you think I'd do this on purpose?" she practically growls at him. "Diyu Mal, do you really think I'm that shallow?" Her lips are pressed tightly together in anger. His own lips are a knife slash across his face as he leans into her personal space. She tries to back away from him but he catches her upper arms in his large hands and keeps her still.

"No, I don't. I think yer completely reckless an' I hate seein' ya hurt like this!" he shoots back at her. She raises her eyebrows at his admission and presses right back into his space, invading just as he does, so he's the one in retreat this time. Her eyes are sparking with a mix of incredulousness, anger and something warm spilling over in a torrent he can't read. All he knows is that she's _right there_, right in his space, lips an inch from his, eyes zeroed in on his. She's not escaping like she usually does when anyone gives her an affectionate touch; Serena is reacting like this is a fight she is enjoying beating. And he's not entirely sure he minds.

"Is _that_ why you won't let me go on jobs?" she demands, lips almost brushing his. His eyes are hard and but not cold as he forces her to retreat a little.

"Don't start that again," he responds. Serena is regaining her ground, leaning over the corner of the table to be closer to him. There's a tiny smile playing around her lips as she softly asks her next question.

"Why not? I have just as much right as anyone else to help!" she pleads with her husky, smoky voice.

"'Cause knowin' you, I'll be pickin' bits a you ofa somethin' or other after you got yerself inta a nasty fight!" Mal hisses at her. She opens her mouth to say something else but Mal's had enough. He's had enough of this game, he's had enough of pretending he doesn't care what she does to him and he's had enough of being conflicted. Gorram it, he likes her and she doesn't push him away. That's enough for him.

When his lips press against hers she jumps a little, not expecting the contact. But she relaxes, more easily than she did the first time he did this, and threads her fingers through his hair to pull him closer. He's thrilled when she doesn't immediately try to escape like the first few times, that she actually seems alright with it now. She's been on _Serenity_ for three months, for two they've been involved in these soul baring talks, and for the past three weeks they've been… experimenting like this. Some of the memories she gets back are not pleasant. She told him under duress the first time she was attempting to keep herself awake. After a while it became easier for her, especially as he revealed bits of himself to her. Serena tells of the flashes of memory she receives; Mal tells about the war and growing up on Shadow. She tells him about her fears for River and hopes for Kaylee; he tells her about his "wife" Saffron and the problems with Inara. That's how they work.

Mal waits a few heartbeats to see if she's still doing alright before deepening the kiss. The first time he kissed her she panicked, memories of being held down flooding her brain until she was sprinting from the room. The second time they kissed she initiated it, determined to not let this beat her, only to be frightened away again by what she remembered. And so on. Each time she seems to gain a bit more control of herself. Mal is willing to take it slow, to give her space to breathe and think when she needs it. When he swipes his tongue against her bottom lip she eagerly opens her mouth, inviting him to take this farther. His hands clutch at her hips, feeling the thin swath of cloth over muscle and the sharp ridge of bone. Her fingernails, short and blunt so she can help Kaylee with the engines, scratch lightly at his scalp as his tongue does wicked and bold things to the inside of her mouth. It's a long time they sit there, just kissing, before she pulls away with a gasp to rest her forehead against his. Serena releases a shuttering breath, eyes still closed, and Mal instinctively squeezes her hips to ground her. "Hey. It's okay," he murmurs, tilting his head so he can murmur into her ear. She buries her face into the crook of his neck and laughs a touch dryly.

"I'm a mess," she admits, squeezing tighter around his shoulders. Mal doesn't think, just acts; he grasps her hips lightly in his hands and pulls her onto his lap. She squeaks in shock and tightens her hold on him but she doesn't push away. Her legs bracket his lap so she's straddling him. He can feel her blushing into the sensitive skin of his neck at the intimate position and he smiles softly into her shoulder.

"Darlin', I'd be worried if you weren't a mess. Look 'round; everyone here is," he whispers, kissing her neck swiftly before rubbing his hands in slow circles over her back. She chuckles and keeps her fingers woven into his thick dark hair. "Let's see… There's Wash. 'Nough said." She laughs, openly and richly into his ear, and he grins. "Jayne… don't rightly know what went wrong there…"

"Jayne's not so bad," Serena giggles. Mal pulls back from the cage of her arms to look at her in mild, feigned annoyance.

"Now, am I supposed ta be jealous?" he teases with a throaty growl. She laughs again and raises an eyebrow saucily. She's relaxing beneath his warm hands and teasing voice.

"Depends. He certainly knows how to use his hands…" she purrs. He thinks she's joking, but that grin… he's not entirely sure. Mal opens his mouth and closes it a few times trying to figure out how to ask her if she's serious or not. Serena cracks after only thirty seconds and starts to shake with suppressed laughter. He scowls playfully when he realizes she got him and buries his face into her soft and luxurious tresses.

"Oh, very funny. Shiny." He feels her continue to shake against him as she tries to regain control of herself. "You fantasizin' 'bout Jayne Darlin'?"

"Maybe. Or maybe I prefer pretty guys," she says affectionately. Mal raises his head to grin at her when she responds, "You know, Simon's pretty. In a manly sort of way." And she has him floundering again. Just when he thinks he has the upper hand…

"So, you like _pretty_," Mal asks gruffly. He can see her hiding a grin behind raised eyebrows.

"Not on guys," she admits. But for once Mal knows her train of thinking.

"Don't you dare say somethin' 'bout Kaylee. That ain't a picture I want in my head," he groans. Serena laughs throatily against him and kisses his cheek.

"Why Captain. I didn't know you had something against sly people," she hints. She already knows he couldn't care less. But she's goading him, and gorram it, if he's not going to answer the call. Mal rests his hands on her ribs and rubs tight circles there, enjoying the hitch in Serena's breathing.

"I ain't got no problem with it, I just ain't interested in thinkin' 'bout my mei-mei like that," he mumbles back. "You wanna picture River with some teenage boy? Or girl?" Serena abruptly stops breathing altogether, horror settling around her sharp features. Mal silently cheers as he _finally_ wins. For once.

"Yeah, okay, not funny," she growls. "Not funny _at all_."

"My point," Mal says smugly. Serena rolls her eyes and slaps his chest lightly, and he laughs as he presses her closer, fingers weaving through the thick curls spilling down to her hips. She buries her face into his shoulder and closes her eyes with a long, content sigh. He can see the edges of her lashes glancing across the ridge of her cheekbone when he tilts his head the right way. Mal smiles a little, closed lipped and happy, as he watches her.

"That's a little creepy," she comments after a few minutes of this without opening her eyes. Mal just chuckles and ghosts a kiss across her temple. Serena makes no move other than to tap his bicep with her nail and to sigh again.

"Ain't my fault yer so fascinatin'," he murmurs, kissing her ear and relishing the shiver that dances across her flesh. Serena snorts at his comment and tilts her head to kiss his neck.

"Please. _You're_ the interesting one," she comments, tracing random patterns across his chest with the edge of her nail. Mal catches her hand in his and waits for her to tilt her head back and meet his curious gaze before he voices his question.

"Why do ya say that?" he asks quietly. Serena shrugs and tilts her head. Those big golden eyes of hers, almost inhumanly large when she's thinking, are trained on his as she considers him.

"Because I don't understand you," she admits softly. "Taking all of us in? Me, Simon, River… we're nothing but trouble. The Alliance is going to come for us eventually. You know that and yet you shelter us anyway. I don't… I'm not sure I would do the same thing, if I were you." She's not cruel, merely stating a fact. She means no disrespect in her words, doesn't mean to harass him, and he responds accordingly. He tilts his head much as she does and gives this tiny, lopsided grin, sky blue eyes sad.

"Maybe I just like pissin' off the Allaince húndàns," Mal teases her. She narrows her golden eyes at him and shoves at his chest. He laughs and she scowls.

"I'm serious," she insists. "That's not nearly enough of a motive for you." Mal trails his hand down her back to wrap around her waist, hoisting her even closer onto his lap. He cups her rear beneath his palms, and grins at her little squeal. "MAL!"

"You got somethin' against me touchin' you there?" he mumbles into the seam where her shoulder meets her neck. He can feel her skin flushing beneath his lips and gives a rather self-satisfied smirk at her reaction. Serena doesn't bother to reply, choosing instead to tighten the hold of her thighs against his body, therefore crushing her most effectively into his lap. She gives him a slow, wicked smile when his smirk becomes a long groan.

"No," she hums, keeping her fingers wrapped in his hair and her arms loosely around his neck. "You've got great hands you know," she says cheekily, purposely pressing down into his hands. He lets out another groan and his fingers reflexively tighten.

"Gorram woman," he mutters. "Darlin', if you don't stop -"

"Oh, okay," she says hastily, blushing hard as she tries to duck out from his arms and put space between them. She almost makes it back to her chair before he catches her again and hauls her back onto his lap. Mal laughs a little at this impossible woman in his arms, both a tempting seductress and a shy little maiden rolled into one. Serena is so afraid of hurting him that she bolts at a moment's notice, if her memories don't chase her away first. He wraps his arms securely around her slim hips, her back now against his chest, and props his chin on her shoulder. She tilts her head to look at him curiously, and in the dim light he can see the scrapes have healed over and the bruise has become more yellow than purple. That healing shit is amazing.

"Usually, Serena, when a man says that it's an invitation ta keep goin'," he tells her with a chuckle. She blushes again and relaxes back so her head is lolling back onto his shoulder.

"Oh," she answers. After a moment, "Shiny." Mal erupts into laughter at this strange little creature he is holding tightly in his arms. Serena soon follows him, shaking with mirth upon realizing how ridiculous the situation is.

"I ain't ever gonna understand you, am I?" he breathes once he's done laughing. She shrugs and props her feet up on the chair across from him, eyes heavy-lidded and a small little curl to her lips.

"I hope not."

"So, how was your night with Simon?" Serena slyly looks at Kaylee from where she's propped up over the engine, carefully extracting certain wires and moving them at Kaylee's direction. Kaylee blushes and bites her lip. Serena sees this and grins to herself. "Oh? That good eh?"

"You ain't gonna tell Cap'n, are ya?" Kaylee asks anxiously, peering at Serena's completely healed face. The older woman must have had three, four hours of sleep tops after she and Mal left each other, but she felt amazing and refreshed anyway. She could blame that on her enhanced skills but she always felt extremely good after a night of sharing, kindness and physical contact with Mal. She was getting the hang of that touching thing everyone on this boat was so damn good at. She especially liked it when Mal touched her. At first the fire that heated her belly and skin at the brush of his fingers had frightened her until she had realized what it _was_: attraction. She wondered if she had never known attraction before, and decided she hadn't. At least not to this degree.

"Please!" Serena snorts, sitting back and removing her gloves. "I think I'd be in just as much trouble for hiding it! Besides, this is Mal; he probably already knows." Kaylee considers the older woman as she sits back to grab a water bottle and take a long sip. Serena is practically glowing underneath the grease, sweat and faint traces of blood covering her face and arms. Her muscles ripple as she sets the bottle back down and gets back to work. So strong, and caring, and gentle… and certainly gives the captain a good fight.

"Serena?" Kaylee asks. Serena makes a small noise of acknowledgment, carefully winding her hands below a specific part to grab a small little silver box. She snakes her hand back out to give the box to Kaylee before looking for the other part Kaylee needs. The mechanic sets the little piece down and turns her piercing green eyes to the woman across from her. "Are you sexin' up the Cap'n?"

Serena jolts in surprise, the sudden movement meaning her hand jerks to the side and is sliced by a sharp edge of the engine. The experiment hisses as she withdraws her hand and sucks on the bloody part of her hand. Kaylee shrieks and jumps to her feet, stumbling a bit as she hunts for a med kit. "Kaylee calm down, it's fine," Serena soothes, grimacing at her hand. "And where in the 'verse did _that_ come from?!" Kaylee, who is victorious in her hunt, hands her the med kit without responding to the other woman.

"Oh God, I'm so sorry! Gousa, I didn't mean to -" Kaylee blubbers, distressed at hurting the woman. Serena shakes her head and roots around for a little can of bandages. Wordlessly she hands it to Kaylee when she finds it and doesn't flinch when the mechanic squirts the foam over the still bleeding gash.

"It'll be gone in a day or two Kaylee," Serena soothes. "And you didn't answer me; why would you ask me something like that?" Kaylee pauses in her administrations to Serena's hand and lets a small smirk grace her pretty face for a scant few seconds.

"'Cause a the way ya talk 'bout him," she answers. "Like yer real familiar 'n all. An' the way he's so…"

"Domineering?" Serena says a touch sharply with a soft smile. Kaylee pushes on her shoulder and Serena laughs, clearly relieved the younger woman isn't still traumatized over her hand.

"No!" Kaylee grins. "Naw, I mean… he's protective a ya, ya know? Like it would kill him to see ya hurt. An' you keep talkin' 'bout him like ya know him so good…"

"Well," Serena corrects absently, tilting her head to the side to study Kaylee. Finally, after several long minutes that have Kaylee squirming uncomfortably, Serena smiles a little and shakes her head. "No, I'm not sleeping with Mal." Kaylee huffs incredulously so Serena grudgingly adds, "But I'd like to." Kaylee squeals and begins to ask for details when River stumbles into the engine room. Glad for the distraction, Serena rushes to River's side with a one-armed quick hug and a smile. River stares into her face absently, mostly gone into her own mind and the rest of her lost in words. Serena's heart flutters with the pain she feels at seeing her _mei mei_ like this but she knows the only thing to do is act normally.

"River what's wrong?' she asks, smile deflating. Kaylee lurches to Serena and River, peering at the young reader with concern. River stares ahead of her and then begins to sing quietly.

"Two by two. Hands of blue. Two by two. Hands of blue…" Kaylee turns pale and backs up. Serena glances at her sharply.

"Kaylee? What's wrong?" she demands. Kaylee's lips tremble and her eyes are wide with fear. River suddenly grabs Serena and shoves her farther into the room. Serena trips over her feet and lands half-sprawled over a work bench as River locks the door. Kaylee bangs her hands against the door and yells for River to let them out. Of course she doesn't. Serena grabs Kaylee's shoulders and shakes her, hard. "Kaylee! What is going on?"

"They can't be back," Kaylee says shakily, edging away from the door. "They can't be, the Cap made sure of that, he made sure -" Serena backs away from her, suddenly afraid. Because a part of her knows what Kaylee means. A part of her knows a certain pair of individuals with blue gloves on their hands and a knack for tracking down experiments.

"The hands of blue." Her words are a whisper, a prayer that this isn't real. But as Mal's voice comes over the comm unit, frantically yelling at Kaylee and Serena to boost the engines to full burn, she knows this is very much her reality. Flashes of hands holding her down, hands coated in blue plastic, as needles and wires are shoved into her take over for a far too long. Serena desperately helps Kaylee with the engines, but when _Serenity_ comes to a grinding halt she knows.

This world her family has carved for her is about to be blown wide open.

"How long do you think the door will hold?" Kaylee whispers to her. Serena shakes her head and walks over to the door, pressing her ear against it. There is no sound through the thick metal. Her heart is barely beating as she waits for some sign from Mal, from Wash, from _anyone_ about what's happening out there. Frustration and fury cloud her judgment, make her foolhardy, make her reckless; damn it, she's not going to let them take everything from her without a fight! Not again. _Never_ again.

"Depends," Serena announces in a low, authorative voice, backing away from the door and piercing Kaylee's green eyes with her clear, golden, and now gem-like orbs. Kaylee actually whimpers when those cold jewels fix on her and backs away. Something is very wrong with the normally cheerful woman. "How long will it take you to override the locks?"

They line up everyone they can find when they get on the ship. Alliance guards flood the area, so quickly they have no time to hide River and Simon. They're brought out with the rest of the crew, thrown down beside Jayne and Zoe. Zoe fingers the gun in her boot and glares stonily at the Alliance men, but Mal shakes his head almost imperceptibly at her. Shooting them won't do any good. Jayne's gritting his teeth and eyeing a long hunting knife near him, left over from where he had been stringing up the cargo and cutting the ends off. River's eyes are closed and she's muttering under her breath, chanting what sounds like a hymn over and over. Simon is beside her, looking absolutely terrified as the men storm over his new home. Wash is on Mal's other side, quietly muttering, "Oh Shiny, just shiny…"

The guards are done scoring the place when the hands of blue glide on board, their inhuman movements even more pronounced than Mal remembered. He has a snarl on his lips as they peer at the few crew members they have found and smile tightly. The sight is like a skeleton grinning from the grave and serves to send chills over all of their spines.

"This is it," an Alliance guard offers the two men with blue hands. "We can't find anyone else."

"Doesn't matter," another one says gruffly. "We found the Tams. Let's just kill 'em, take the fugitives and get going."

"Like hell yer -" Jayne starts, lunging for his knife. The butt of a gun flashes and Jayne sprawls across the floor, groaning as a large welt appears across his temple.

"We are not here for the Tams," one Blue says coldly. He doesn't sound angry, more lifeless than anything else. "Though we will take them as well, we are here for one Harmony Thorne." _Harmony Who?_

"I'm afraid you're mistaken officers," Wash says feebly. "There ain't a Harmony on this boat. Swear to God." Mal jumps in eagerly, confused but having a fairly good idea as to where this is going.

"I know every nook an' cranny, an' _Serenity_ ain't got a Harmony -" he starts. The second blue fixes his eyes on Mal and the captain tappers off, realizing that talking, like usual, will only serve to get him in trouble. He's just grateful Serena and Kaylee have stayed hidden.

Zoe's hand is even tighter on her gun as she looks between the thirty or so men surrounding them, calculating, watching for an opening that won't come. The Blues smile, leaning forward towards her as if waiting for her to make a move so they can snuff the life out of her in an instant. River's hand flies out and grabs the first mate's hand, shaking her head so her long dark hair is sent waving gently.

"No," she says. "No. Angel is triggered. Coming." A Blue kneels by River, intrigued by her confession.

"She's here, isn't she?" he murmurs. "Subject three is here?" River fixes large brown eyes on him and stubbornly keeps her mouth shut. Simon pipes up then, protectively jumping in front of his sister.

"Don't you speak to her!" he snarls. The Blue gets back up with a smirk and reaches for something. He pulls a little metal tube out of his pocket and trails his thumb over a small button. His finger is just moving to press it, Mal opens his mouth to shout something to distract him –

"Trigger," River murmurs. All eyes turn to her in bewilderment, even the hands of blue. And in that moment everything changes.

There is no sound as the bullet pierces one of the blue's skull, only the spray of blood and tissue as it rips through him. He falls dead instantly to the ground, eyes still wide and staring. The one still standing, the one with the little silver device, stares at his college in shock as the Alliance guards start shouting. Mal instinctively slams Wash into the ground and follows after him. He hears a crash as Simon is knocked over, River throws herself to protect Jayne from the oncoming assault, and Zoe draws her gun to help the sniper. Then there come the screams. He looks up once when they start to see Zoe's mouth hanging open in shock. The Alliance starts shooting randomly and she vaults over to Mal's side, clutching her husband's arm and ducking to hide her head. Mal covers himself as best he can and listens to the guns blaze and screams around him. It's not in his nature to hide when a battle is raging around him, but somehow, someway, he knows this isn't a battle he can be a part of. He for once trusts that he'd be in the way and squeezes his eyes shut. Once in a while he feels something warm splatter his back but he still doesn't move. He's not sure he wants to see who exactly their "savior" is.

River is the one who taps his side when it's over so he'll raise his head and look at the aftermath. Mal does so slowly, wide eyed at the thick and gleaming puddles of blood surrounding him and his crew, slowly merging into one large lake dribbling down through _Serenity's_ grates. Wash is next to look up and he gasps as he takes in the scene. The hands of blue are dead, one with a bullet wound in his head, the other decapitated. Jayne is after Wash, groggy and not altogether there.

"When'd we paint _Serenity_ red?" he asks, staring at the blood around him in confusion. River stares unabashedly at the figure near the air lock, a look of awe on her face. The sight of the young reader's expression is almost as unsettling as the massacre around him. Zoe's jaw locks as she stares at the young woman across from them, gasping in deep breaths, her skin glistening with sweat, engine grease, and blood. Of course blood.

Mal is the first to speak (intelligibly). "Serena?" he calls, uncertain if the creature across from him, that shy, compassionate, strong-headed and loving girl with so many conflicting sides is really who he is staring at. Golden eyes focus on him and she grips the long and red-drenched blade in her hands tighter. It's so small, only as long as her thigh, impossibly small to inspire this level of carnage. But the mass of blood and bodies would say otherwise. Mal gets to his feet and approaches her, afraid of something, but what he doesn't know. Her? Or for her? As he draws closer he can see that her hands are trembling on the blade, shaking so badly she's white-knuckling the handle to keep the long piece of metal steady. "Serena," he says, more firmly, reaching towards her. All eyes are on them, are on the girl they are afraid will be as liable to stab their captain as she is to defend them.

The blade clatters to the ground as Serena's eyes roll back into her head and she collapses in Mal's arms.

**And everything's okay! Not! C'mon, as awesome as it is to think that they're all going to trust her again… she just did one. Big. No-no. And she's not freaking out over the murder she just caused. You'll see her reaction to that later. Serena just passed out for an entirely different reason. I didn't feel like dragging out her relationship with Mal, she's been on **_**Serenity**_** for three months, I'd figure if it wasn't Inara Mal would probably act on his attraction if it was reciprocated. And I can see him being patient and nice as she deals with memories, flashbacks, etc… I may be channeling Castle a bit for this one… anyway, it's my story, I have a plan for it, deal! Sorry, I'm tired and kind of cranky.**

**Review if you want, I really don't care. Just glad I finally got around to writing this chapter!**

**-Bella**


	6. Trust

**So I got two reviews that made me kind of upset… not because they were nasty or anything (in fact they were very, very sweet, trying to cheer me up, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart because they were so nice)… but because they made me go back and reread my author's note and… well is it just me or did I sort of sound like a bitch? I am so sorry, I have no idea why I was in such a crappy mood two weeks ago! Seriously, it's not like I got hit with really bad news or anything! There was no excuse and I'm really, really, REALLY sorry…**

**If you accepted my apology and can overlook my previously hideous mood, I hope you like this chapter. Most of it was written during the day, but currently it is near eleven, I spent the past three or so hours doing homework that has left my brain mush, and I'm just hopeful this makes sense by the time I'm done and crash in front of my computer or room… let's see where I end up!**

**Enjoy!**

**Chapter Six: Trust**

"Thorne!" Thorne doesn't turn as Morgan approaches him, striding hard and fast to keep as far away from Morgan for as long as possible. Morgan catches him easily, falling into step beside him, a smug grin plastered on his face. "That was a wonderful tactic of yours, Thorne! Subject fifty-four located Harmony. A team has been sent to retrieve her." Thorne hides his scowl. That had not been his intention three months ago when he had the subject search for his elusive sister. Having Morgan find her is the _last_ thing Thorne wants, but he has to work with what fate has presented him. He flicks his fingers up, a yellow slip of paper with scribbled Chinese words printed on it trapped between his fingers. The grin becoming a twisted look of confusion, Morgan yanks the slip from him and pours over it. Thorne waits expectantly for that trade-mark frown right before a temper-tantrum. In fact he _craves_ it; he'd like nothing more than to restrain Morgan. Forcefully. So when Morgan chuckles instead Thorne rears away and scowls at the other man.

"What's so funny? She killed over thirty of our men and our chief operatives in the Academy!" Thorne snaps. Internally he's quite impressed with his sister. He knew she was strong, but _this_? This is incredible. Those two should not have been the easy kills she made of them. Harmony had learned a trick or two since she left the Academy four years earlier.

"Oh, Thorne," Morgan laughs. "I know the _little sweetheart_," and here Morgan's mouth twists into a sneer around the word, a laughing ironic joke of his he has been taunting Thorne with for years now, "better than you do. Brother, you remember how she worked during the war with that odious Riis fellow. If she had been at Serenity Valley -"

"The rutting Brown Coats would have won," Thorne says bitterly. "You have mentioned this fact once or twice Morgan." Morgan ignores the cold fury in Thorne's voice and simply laughs at his former friend.

"It is worth repeating. Did you really think I did not know what she would do? It seems are darling girl has made a few friends out there in the Black." And here Morgan withdraws a folded piece of paper from his pocket. He unfolds it and hands it to Thorne, that despicable sneer on his lips. Thorne slowly scans it, feeling his fingers go numb from where he is pinching them around the corners. It's a hard copy of a photo – good lord, he had forgotten there _were_ still such things! – of a transport ship, class Firefly. A very familiar looking Firefly.

"Is that –"

"Malcolm Reynolds' ship, crew, and most likely the man himself? The last known location of the Tams? Of course, Thorne. Coincidence of coincidences that she lands herself on the ship of the commander of Nathan Riis' troop." Morgan is practically glowing with his self-righteous victory. Thorne feels cold as he hands the photo back to his former friend. Morgan takes it back and tucks it into his breast pocket with a vainglorious affectation that makes Thorne a little nauseated. "Too bad the Hands won't be able to bring them in after all. But their sacrifice will be remembered," Morgan says airily with condescending sympathy. The pieces click together roughly and Thorne stops abruptly. Morgan, fully aware of what the news will mean to the other man, stops just as swiftly. That tiny grin is full and center on Morgan's chiseled face.

"You sent them with a tracker," Thorne says in a daze. "You sent them to die." Morgan shrugs and continues walking. There is no hesitation in his step, no sign that maybe this is affecting him in any negative way. He's not even joyous that they are dead, an emotion Thorne could deal with; he just doesn't _care_.

"They betrayed us by not bringing in the Tams," he says simply. "They were no longer useful." Thorne stares after the man's retreating back, bile rising in his throat.

"Is this what you plan to do to my sister?" he calls. Morgan pauses and turns his head slightly so he can watch Thorne out of the corner of his eye. "Kill her because she isn't the perfect, complacent woman you want? Like the Hands weren't perfect?" The head tilts to the side much as Harmony's did when she was curious over something. It is a deliberate movement that sets Thorne's teeth on edge, just as Morgan intends it to do.

"Unlike the Hands, Harmony will always be useful. Women can always be used for something, right brother?"

"Harmony will never rut you willingly," Thorne hisses. Morgan just laughs, continuing to walk away.

"Of course she does. You might not realize this Thorne, but she's a whore. A very good, very pretty one, who says the right things in just the right way, but a whore none the less." The cruel, mocking words in that sickly sweet tone with the undercurrent of money to it have Thorne clenching his fists and envisioning all sorts of ways to murder Morgan. "Trust me; I will talk to her about that little 'unwilling' act of hers once she is returned home, safe and sound."

* * *

Mal leans his head back against the wall of the storage area and closes his eyes. They finally managed to get the bodies out of the cargo bay and into space. Hopefully it will be a very long time, if ever, before the Alliance finds the bodies. The mess of blood that dripped through the grates still needs to be cleaned up. For now that area has been closed off until further notice.

Serena had Kaylee hide on the bridge before she grabbed one of Jayne's longer knives and Vera from his room. He doesn't know what to think of her foresight to hide Kaylee from the carnage. He doesn't know what to make of the fact she did this to save their lives. One could argue that this was a case of unrestrained and barbaric violence and therefore very good cause for dumping Serena's beautiful ass – still unconscious two days later – on the nearest moon and say good riddance. That's Zoe and Wash's point of view. They already have two fugitives, one _extremely_ dangerous. River hasn't left Serena's side since she passed out in Mal's arms, revealing her position on the matter. Surprisingly Kaylee is on River's side, fighting vehemently to keep Serena on _Serenity_. Simon is caught between the two arguments; he's grateful that Serena took care of the threat to his sister, but terrified of what she might eventually remember and how that could impact River. And the captain? He's not sure where he stands.

Jayne's head appears around the corner, eyes searching. Seeing Mal standing there, he leans against the door jam and crosses his arms over his chest. Mal groans and pinches the bridge of his nose angrily. "Ever heard of privacy, Jayne?" he demands roughly. Jayne just watches him coolly.

"What're you doin' 'bout Serena?" he asks calmly. Mal just glares at him.

"Got any suggestions, Jayne? 'Cause I remember yer opinion on fugitives aboard my boat very clearly." Jayne flushes at the reminder but keeps his focus on his captain.

"Ya already knew what she was, Mal. Super blood an' all that? Fast healer? Needs to work out? C'mon, it don't take a genius to see that she's supposed ta be some kind a soldier or somethin'. Hell, _I _figured it out!" Mal glares at him in disbelief.

"Excuse me, but are ya suggestin' that we keep her here? You?" he asks incredulously. Jayne shrugs and keeps his eyes on Mal.

"Might be useful, havin' her around. Alliance ain't gonna wanna mess with her if she picks our side, and ain't gonna wanna mess with us 'cause a her. And I ain't wantin' that girl getting' a grudge against me. We got 'nough people wantin' ta kill us without addin' a super soldier to the mix." It is completely… reasonable. Jayne is being reasonable in a calm, cool, _intelligent_ way. That fact alone has Mal's mouth dropping open in shock.

"Doc dope ya again Jayne?" he finally stutters out. Jayne snorts and turns to leave. He pauses in his movements, seeming to consider something. Finally when he speaks, there's this low, almost hidden note of honesty and… _concern_ in his voice.

"I'm just lookin' out fer her," he says gruffly. "She ain't got no one but us. Can't imagine what it's like, not havin' anyone. Mighty scary. 'Sides, she did protect us; that's gotta count fer somethin', don't it?" With this surprising insight into the burly man, Jayne leaves Mal to his thoughts.

The truth is Mal is torn because he doesn't _want_ to dump Serena somewhere. He likes her. In her he has a friend, a confident, and alright they are in a bit of a… er… _physical_ relationship. He certainly appreciates that part but he values this deep mental connection with her even more. But Mal is scared for his crew; while he knows, deep down where he can't even admit it to himself, that Serena will never hurt them he has to put their safety first. What if she got mad and took it out on Kaylee? Or Zoe? Or Wash? River can certainly hold her own but that is the only person he _isn't_ worried about.

He needs a more trusted opinion on this one.

* * *

When Serena awakes she feels groggy and lethargic; her eyelids barely peel back and her limbs refuse to cooperate with her body's commands. A bony little body is tucked into hers, long brown hair falling over a tingling arm, brown eyes staring into her face. That would be a little disconcerting if she hadn't been expecting it. Unconsciously she had felt River by her this entire time. "Hey mei-mei," she says, her voice dripping exhaustion and relief. River stands without a word and helps Serena sit up, much to the older woman's chagrin. "Feel like an invalid," she mutters. River lets a brief smile tug at her lips before becoming somber.

"You scared me," the young reader confesses. "I was afraid… when you passed out your brain died… I thought…" Serena, quickly deducing the problem, rushes to cuddle River to her, making shushing noises and stroking her hair.

"Sh, it's okay River," she murmurs. "It's okay. I promise, I'm fine." That is a little bit of an overstatement, as the woman is feeling extremely weak at the moment, but essentially it is the truth. Serena clutches River to her and presses a kiss to her hair, happy to the point of tears that her mei-mei and her crew are safe. Serena isn't pretending she doesn't remember what happened; she isn't going to play a game and say she wasn't in control. Maybe that would set the crews fears at ease – something they had control over, something they could cure – but she cares too much for them to lie to them like that. Serena knew _exactly_ what she was doing when she killed those men. When the Hand had pulled that tiny, weak-looking, but very powerful weapon from his pocket she'd been hiding on the catwalk, watching her crew being forced in front of him and feeling the dark loathing warping her mind. She'd seen that weapon and image upon image of people had flashed through her mind, people who had died screaming and begging and bleeding. And he was fingering the God damn button, _for her family!_ _In front of Mal_. The feelings that had overtaken her as she had raised Vera and pointed Jayne's beloved weapon with superhuman accuracy on the Hand surprised her in the moment but she had pretended she didn't know what they were, letting them fuel her, drive her. She had made absolutely sure that the Hands wouldn't be able to touch them, not then, not ever. The rest of the Alliance had been harder as she had darted among them, stabbing and hacking like she had been built to do nothing else. In retrospect it probably is why she had been created.

Even now, with River cuddled into her side, Serena can't help but feel grateful she had killed them, the stab of relief that there are a few less of those rutters chasing her and her family driving straight to the core of her. Serena doesn't like killing; she derives no source of pleasure from it. But there is satisfaction in knowing that she can protect herself and those she cares about. She will do it again, and without remorse, if the situation is ever repeated.

_Serenity_ jolts a little, and Serena's hand flies out to steady herself and River. She regrets the action instantly as her sore muscles scream in protest. She lets out a groan and River hastily gets up, fretting a little as she tries to figure out how to help her friend. Serena waves her off and makes as if to get up. This proves an even worse idea, for the second her body is vertical her weak legs give out on her and it is only because of River's quick movements that she doesn't spill painfully onto the floor. Serena growls at herself, hating this feeling of being weak, but doesn't shove River away nonetheless. River helps her stumble-step over to the infirmary door. It takes some navigating to get through the door, and from there Serena uses the wall and the stairs to keep herself upright. "Maybe you should…" River starts, but Serena shakes her head and keeps walking. She cautiously heads towards the cargo bay, needing to see for herself what has been done since she passed out. Needing to see what _she_ has done.

The lower end of the cargo bay is stained in scarlet. Coagulated rivulets of blood are everywhere: on the grating, the walls, the cargo boxes, and the door. Serena stays close to the wall and balks a little as the sticky redness coats her hand. But she wipes her hands on her clothes and keeps moving forward, her feet pressing into the hard metal, her feet soon coated in a thin layer of the crimson slime. She stops, hidden by the cargo, and looks around herself. A faint, mostly forgotten memory surfaces in her mind of a room drenched in blood, of it spilling across a hard white floor and splattering on white surfaces. Serena looks down at her wrists with a detached sort of interest as the memory becomes clearer. _Not the first time my hands have had blood on them_, she thinks with chokingly dark amusement. A whimper draws her attention, and Serena whirls guiltily towards River. "Hey, honey, I'm sorry," she murmurs, quickly tripping back over to River and taking her into her arms. "I'm sorry," she repeats. "I shouldn't have let you hear that." River is shaking and Serena holds her tighter against herself.

"Blood… blood was everywhere," River says, tears beginning to form in her large eyes. "Made a pond and then the pond made a lake. Wouldn't stay in, just kept gushing and flooding the worlds, making you fade into nothing but blood…" Serena shushes her and keeps her close.

"River I'm okay. Alright? I won't ever try that again, I promise you." _Though why in the 'verse I tried to kill myself in the first place is beyond me. _River goes very still as the words hang there, between them even though there should be no space to fit even a small breath. Realizing that River might misinterpret her bewilderment for an invitation to divulge, Serena quickly thinks of the most soothing and gentle things her mind can carry.

Serena has figured out that River knew her before the accident. The ways River looks at her sometimes, talks to her as if expecting a certain response, and just seems to _know_ her are a dead giveaway. She isn't afraid of Serena and knows that locking her up when the Hands are coming would be a trigger as well as a way for Serena to get an advantage on them. And to be honest, Serena is happiest not knowing her past. Here, with this crew, on this ship, is home. The warm glow that has taken residence in her chest, gradually forming over three months, was so staggeringly new to her at first that she knows that she hasn't experienced this feeling of lov- _contentment _in a very long time. She'd prefer not to remember why this has been absent from her life for so very long.

River tilts her head into Serena's shoulder and sighs against the older woman, calmer now, less stressed. "You haven't read to me in two days," she notes absently and randomly. Serena laughs and kisses the top of River's head. That's their little secret; when River can't sleep Serena will read to her out of the scattered few books or sing to her (apparently dancing isn't the only theatrical skill the woman possesses). She loves it, loves the flow of words that tumbles from her lips, loves the woven strands of the story as it unfolds like rich silk cocooning them in these far away worlds.

"No, I've been rather tired," she says fondly. River smiles and snuggles firmly into her side. "I'll read to you tonight if you'd like." Not patronizing, Serena is more accepting River's weird quirks. Half the time the young reader seems to be decades earlier than she actually is, far surpassing anyone else in the boat when it comes to maturity. The other half the time she seems to be years younger and childlike. Serena loves both sides of her and indulges both of them frequently. Serena ushers River from the room, her main concern that River will be forced to look at the disaster behind them again. Though, secretly, buried so far down in herself she's denying it as much as possible, she _really_ needs to sit down. River knows of course and, without comment, she leads Serena over to the common room to sit down. She does so, propping her feet up on the short table and gesturing for River to sit beside her. The younger woman does so, curling up into Serena's side. She tilts her dark amber blonde head to lean against River's and lets out a heartfelt sigh as River drops into unconsciousness. Idly she wonders how much sleep River has gotten over the past two days.

"Hey," a voice says by Serena's side. She starts, careful to keep the movement contained so as to not wake the sleeping reader, and turns to face Jayne. The surprise must show on his face because the big man grins a little wryly at her. She quickly masks the emotion with a gentle groan.

"So humpin' unbelievable," she complains, running her fingers through River's long tresses. "I've been out two days and I'm_ still_ exhausted!" Jayne chuckles and plops down onto the table, crossing his arms over his chest. Serena yawns and tilts her head to the side, the question obvious in her big golden eyes. She can see the concern in his bright eyes and catches the faint frown lingering in the muscles surrounding his mouth; she's curious as to what's causing it. She likes Jayne, looks at him almost as she would a gruff older brother, but to be honest she doesn't know if he likes her at all. As a wrestling and sparring partner he can throw around without causing permanent damage? Sure. As a human being? She can count on one hand how many serious conversations they've had, and she can't think of any that Jayne particularly liked. The silence eventually coaxes Jayne into talking.

"Wanna make sure yer alright," he admits gruffly, looking away. "Had some a us worried, pullin' that act." She makes a face and looks down at River, still sound asleep. She's rather grateful the reader won't be around for this conversation.

"Yeah, I'm sure I did," she mutters, keeping her eyes away from River. "So, am I off of _Serenity_?" she asks bluntly. Out of the corner of her eye she can see Jayne winced.

"Nothin's been decided yet…" he allows. "Zoe ain't happy with ya, but Kaylee's fightin' like hell ta keep ya with us." Serena isn't surprised at this news. Zoe's concern is her family. A threat to them has to go. Kaylee… well Kaylee probably hasn't seen the mess that's the cargo bay. "Doc and Wash seem a bit unsure, though Wash's sidin' with Zoe. Doc's just grateful River's alright." He's leaving out the most important person and they both know it. She waits another beat before hesitantly prodding him to admitting the one person whose opinion Serena values the most.

"And Mal?" She's so timid, and Jayne's immediate wince has her backtracking immediately. _That didn't last long_. "Yeah, I kind of figured," Serena says, surprising even herself with how bitter her voice is.

"Mal ain't decided nothin' yet," Jayne promptly protests. Serena just shakes her head, already clamping down on the emotions surging up inside of her. She knows that whatever trust she's instilled in him has vanished as easily as that. Who could care for a damaged, anxiety-ridden, rutted up and murdering freak? No, too ambiguous; who could _love_ someone like her? Especially when they all realized she didn't have an ounce of remorse for what she had done. "Maybe if you told him why ya did it, he'd understand…"

Serena bursts into startled yet quiet laughter. "You make it sound like you know why I murdered over thirty people in one go!" she chuckled. Jayne's eyes hardened.

"Reckon I do. Seemed pretty obvious ta me." Serena shuts up, guilty for offending the big man, and he shakes his head at her. "I saw ya when ya came in. Saw ya holdin' my gun. The look on yer face… I've felt that before. Not to that extent but still…"

"Who?" she demands. Jayne shrugs. He looks away and she catches the tell-tale signs of remorse and fear on his face when his mind skips to who it is. Very human emotions. He always hides behind his crudeness, his violence and stupidity… just as she hides behind her own walls to keep everyone out.

"My sister." Serena becomes very quiet, mind whirling. She never expected an alley in the mercenary. Nor, as she beginning to realize, did she expect a friend, let alone someone similar to her. She leans forward and catches Jayne's hand, moving so she won't disturb River. If he's anything like her, having someone to talk to would become oddly liberating. It had for her. With a pang Serena realizes that that's over. Swallowing her grief, she trains her eyes on Jayne, locking the fiery gold with the bright blue.

"Tell me about her."

* * *

When _Serenity _lands on Haven Mal finally feels ready to face his crew. He's still unsure about this woman; he wants her, more than he wants anyone, and he's terrified that this desire pulsing through his body is making him foolish. He already waved Shepard Book and is feeling better knowing that someone so rational will be helping him with this decision. Mal clambers out of the cockpit and down the bridge, pausing before entering the cargo bay. No one has really dared enter the room, not when it is so drenched in the quickly blackening fluid. He stands on the catwalk, looking out over the formerly comforting room, and sighs. Truthfully he's not sure if this would have been their blood staining the grate if Serena hadn't done what she had. As much as he'd love to push _that_ thought away he knows it's pertinent to his decision.

"How're we gonna clean this up?" he hears Jayne says a little mournfully below. Yet it's a complete surprise when Serena is the one that answers him.

"Give me a washrag and some lye, I should have it out by tonight," she responds calmly. "Not like the first time I've had to clean blood up." He winces when he hears that, and then at the thought of her with a bucket of lye. Jayne snorts aloud.

"Ain't no way yer cleanin' this up, ya can barely walk!" he protests. Serena just chuckles darkly.

"My mess, my problem." The words send a chill creeping deep into Mal's flesh, piercing his heart. She sounds cold and logical, nothing like the fiery, beautiful and shy creature he knows. He sees her walk out over the grate, looking around her at the blood. The set of her shoulders is stiff, defensive; he doesn't understand until she tilts her head back and looks up at him with unreadable golden eyes. They're flat and guarded, waiting. Mal doesn't say anything but holds her gaze. He's not afraid _of_ her and he wants her to see that. He's afraid of what she could do to his crew. Until he gets Shepard's advice he's not making any sort of decision. Serena's mouth twists into a grimace and she looks away. _Wrong answer_ might as well have been screamed at him across the vacuum of space stretching between them, throwing them farther and farther apart emotionally if not physically. He opens his mouth to call to her possibly, maybe to just say her name like a farewell, when she takes a step forward and collapses.

Mal doesn't think (well, less than he usually does). He pelts down the stairs, streaking over to her, only to find she's being picked up already by Jayne. "Whad I tell ya? Can't even ruttin' walk," the mercenary growls at her. Serena for her part promptly starts kicking and squirming, albeit weakly.

"Jayne! Put me down!" she yelps, struggling so hard the big man nearly drops her at least twice that Mal can see. The captain stays silent, watching them, not far away but feeling as if he is. This woman that was in his lap, pressed tightly against him and kissing him not even three full days ago, has completely closed herself off from him. It's obvious from the way she ignores him and turns to Jayne for help instead. She might as well have whacked him in the ass with a real door. Just like Inara did after they helped Nandi with Russ Burgess.

_Shit, not again_…

* * *

Serena is staring up at the night sky of Haven, River on one side of her, Kaylee on the other. Each girl has a part of her clutched so tightly she can no longer feel it; Kaylee her ribs and River her arm. She doesn't mind, even if she is starting to sweat from the warmth of them on top of the heat coming from the fire crackling near her head. Serena's eyes dart among the stars above her, studiously ignoring the glare of the first mate, the slightly fearful glances of Wash, the worried gaze of Simon and the drunken bellowing of Jayne. Her heart is somewhere near the vicinity of her stomach and is making no plans of surfacing any time soon. She sighs and Kaylee looks up at her in concern.

"You alright?" the mechanic asks, pretty face creased with frown lines. Serena smiles and smoothes one of them with a finger, nodding.

"Just tired." River turns her head and Serena winces as feeling tingles across her flesh.

"Freedom rests in the brilliance of perception," River says ambiguously, slightly dreamy and very much out of it. Serena smiles and presses a kiss to the reader's hair. "Freedom tugs at his heart but he cannot see it; for he is blinded by the darkness of his perception." That makes her frown, and she turns her head to see what River is looking at. Which so happens to be the captain, who is looking straight at her with a slightly hurt and very much wary expression on his face. She quickly snaps her head back to Kaylee, who is frowning in thought.

"Okay, I give up. What's she talkin' 'bout?" Kaylee demands. Serena groans and closes her eyes. She does not need this right now.

"I dunno," she lies. "My brain feels like a pile of mush."

"Does it hurt?" Simon's voice startles Serena enough that she opens her eyes. He's peering down at the three of them, a frown crossing his face. Serena quickly hides her thoughts with a tiny smile and shakes her head. "I still don't understand why your body shut down as it did. There's no evidence that points to damage of any kind. It's more like…"

"She pushed it an' it bit her in the pìgu?" Kaylee quips. Serena scowls at her but Simon reluctantly grins at his beloved mechanic.

"Well, yes," he says bashfully. Kaylee grins and Serena rolls her eyes.

"Who's Mal – _the captain_ talkin' to?" she asks instead, nodding towards the dark man with the thick silver cornrows and the kind, yet oddly fierce, dark eyes. She doesn't miss the silent exchange between Simon and Kaylee when she quickly corrects herself. Simon answers her without comment.

"That's Book." Oh. She's heard all about the Sheppard and how Mal sought his council on tough decisions. Mostly from the man himself. _So that's why we came here_. She surveys the poor yet thriving and happy town around her. Children play down by the village, skipping around fires identical to the one she and her girls are lying beside. Adults talk and laugh together, some conversing with the crew others amongst each other. Quite a few people stare at her and whisper, looking away quickly when she meets their curious eyes. Not exactly the kind of place Serena pictures Malcolm Reynolds being comfortable in. All she can picture her – _the_ captain being comfortable in is the Black, with the wide expanses sprawling around him and the glittering 'verse lying before his feet.

She wishes they were there now.

"You two, shoo!" she suddenly says, waving her hands at Kaylee, who startles from her position cuddled into Serena, and at a bewildered Simon. "The captain's been talkin' to the Sheppard all day. You ain't going to get a moment a moment like this to sneak off!" she laughs, changing the subject for herself and them. She doesn't want to think about the man with the ruggedly handsome face and piercing blue eyes right now; helping her favorite lovebirds is the perfect distraction.

Kaylee catches on immediately, blushing and stammering. Simon just looks confused, the most priceless flabbergasted expression adorning his face as he tries to figure out what Serena is alluding to. River ends up being the one who shoves at her brother with an eye roll because Serena is laughing so hard she can't even sit up straight. "Go have sex in the bushes," she states bluntly. Oh God, Serena is positive she busted one of her ribs laughing at that one. Simon starts to flounder, blubbering and flushing until Kaylee drags him away from the two with accusations of being lewd and disgusting. The way she eyes the bushes is sort of undermining her more than a little. They are so obvious, adorable and maddeningly happy it's sickening.

She hides her jealousy well.

River waits patiently for Serena to stop giggling before she says anything. "You're talking like them now," she says rather calmly. Serena looks at her in confusion.

"Excuse me?" she asks. River shrugs and cuddles into the woman's side again.

"Like Zoe, Wash, Jayne and Mal," she sighs. "You said _ain't_, and you dropped g's. It's odd. I like it." Serena smiles a little and kisses her mei-mei's hair again. "Just don't do that when you read to me. It will be quite vexing." The older woman laughs and hugs her reader.

"Oh God River I needed this," she confesses. The laughter inside of her, the warmth, the lo- _care_ she feels from these people, her family, are blanketing all the fear and anger she's had directed her way since the incident. The reader nods against her shoulder.

"I know." There's a long pause. "He's trying you know." Serena shakes her head against River's head.

"Don't. Please. I… I don't want to hope right now," she admits softly. River snuggles closer and mumbles something against her shirt. "What was that?"

"I said, 'hope is an excuse to stop breathing. Love is the pen that will rewrite the ending.'" Serena balks at the words, leaning back so River is forced to look her in the eye. She stares into the reader's gentle eyes and feels herself pale. She doesn't know why.

"Where in God's name did you hear _that_?" she asks with horror. River smiles a little secretly, getting up from her comfortable position.

"I think you know already." With that cryptic message River takes off, leaving Serena staring after her in confused fear. The words are so familiar, almost like a mantra repeating over and over in her mind, coaxing her towards the truth. She purposefully shakes them off. _No. I don't _want_ to know!_ she stubbornly insists.

"Serena?" On reflex she looks up and immediately regrets it as she meets Mal's blue eyes. She only looks into his face for a second before she looks at the fire.

"Yes Captain?" she asks stiffly. Serena can actually hear Mal wince at the use of his title.

"This is Sheppard Book," the man she's currently trying not to feel for says softly. She looks back at the dark skinned man with the dark and kind eyes and nods politely.

"I know. And if I'm not mistaken, you were informed of who I am," she says formally. A smile threatens at the corners of the Sheppard's eyes and lips, twitching ever so slightly.

"I was hoping we could have a quick chat," Book says, dropping down onto his haunches across from her. Serena can't help it as her lips curve a little. _Hope my ass._ She doubts she could make this man go away even if she tried (though if she's honest there's not much she can do at the moment). The curve flattens out when Mal turns around and stalks away without a backward glance. "Don't mind him. If he can't punch it into submission then he gets too confused for his own good." Serena's startled eyes swing back to the preacher, who laughs at her expression. "I am his friend and a former traveler forced to call truth where I see it."

"Which is why he wants you to talk to me," she intones. He nods.

"About the massacre." If Book wants her to flinch then he should be disappointed; her gaze doesn't even waver as she answers.

"I don't regret it." Her words are blunt and Book's eyebrows rise. He waits and Serena finds the words tumbling out of her, what Jayne could so plainly see inside of her spilling out in a rush of sounds. It scares her how easily she spills her soul to this man she doesn't even know. "If I hadn't done what I did… If I had just sat back… they'd be dead now. The Hands weren't going to take them in. They were going to murder them to get to me."

Book nods and she eventually looks away, back into the fire. "At great risk to yourself," he observes. She snorts, studying each flicker and pop of the fire.

"What does that matter? They're safe." She says it without thought, eyes widening as Book draws in a harsh breath. She shudders slightly. "Somethin' in the water here Sheppard?" she asks feebly. He shakes his head.

"Only a woman who needs someone to understand." She winces and makes a move as if to leave when he reaches out and snags her hands in his. She recoils instinctively, used to the touches of her crew but not of a total stranger. "And someone who will not judge past mistakes." His fingers are tracing over the scars on her wrists and she snatches them back, eyes narrowed.

"That's none of your business," she says stiffly. Book smiles at the woman and shifts closer to her. He lets her hide her physical scars, patient as she skitters back into herself. Oh he understands perfectly why there is conflict in the crew and in the captain. He remembers what it was like for people in the Black. But he also sees no danger for them in this young woman. River and Kaylee were just cuddled with her, and the way she was curling herself around them so protectively, without conscious thought… her response to his prodding… This woman would die if it meant this crew was safe. It rather reminds him of a certain former sergeant. Yes, he can most certainly see why these two were drawn to each other – and why now they are both hurt by the lack of trust on both sides. Two people such as they do not open to others without consequences; the hardest of shields protects only the softest of hearts.

"I've encountered someone like you. A young man by the name of Nathan Riis. He has quite a few scars as well, and the same disposition regarding his own life. He'll be here tomorrow and I'd like you to talk with him." Book tells her this with a clear decision in mind. He knows Nathan's abilities, has watched them himself and felt the mix of fear and awe for them. While Book is completely trusting of his decision regarding the woman he would like the opinion of another experiment regarding the young woman.

"Why?" Book laughs at her incredulousness mixed with curiosity, head tilted to the side and eyes narrowed. Oh yes, he knows why Mal likes her so much.

"He can tell you more about yourself. He's an experiment like you." He can see the surprise and hope in her eyes, but is taken aback by her eager words.

"Does he know about readers? Can he help River?" _Maybe a little _too_ much alike to Malcolm Reynolds…_

* * *

Voices wake Serena up the next morning. She hears them coming closer to where she is curled by the fire, a book in one hand and the other curled around River. Serena and Book talked well into the night but she still managed to keep her promise to River. Groggily, Serena untangles herself from River stumbles up, still weak but a little stronger.

"Haven't seen ya since the war Serg! How are you?" The voice is young, exuberant and oddly… familiar. She feels herself become more awake as she silently creeps around the smoldering ruins of her fire and ducks towards the three men silhouetted against the wall of a building. When one turns her way she ducks next to a log currently with Jayne sprawled atop it, peering over the bulky man. A man who looks quite similar to Mal, though younger and with features that lean towards the 'pretty' spectrum, is looking around the camp with the air of someone who knows he's being spied on by a friendly party. He looks around a few times before turning back to Mal and Sheppard Book. She finds herself studying his face, a sense that she has met him before tugging at her heart. She feels… actually she's getting a sensation similar to if she were spying on Simon or Jayne.

"Doin' well until a few days ago," Mal says gruffly. She doesn't catch the rest of what he says as Jayne chooses that moment to snore loudly and roll over so she can't see. She scowls and prods the big man, who swats at her in irritation. Serena barely ducks in time.

"…probably like my sister from the sounds of it. Girl was always gettin' into trouble when it came to fights and such," the strange man, who must be Nathan, smiles. "If she's anything like Annchi you don't need ta worry, Serg. Yer in good hands."

"Still can't believe yer one a them experiments from the Academy," Mal is saying, shaking his head in disbelief. Nathan shrugs.

"Ya think I got so good at shootin' on my own?" he jokes. Book chuckles.

"From the sounds of it that sister of yours taught you everything you know."

"And not enough of what she does. Did." She can hear the grief and longing in his voice as she leans around Jayne's form. _Just a little closer, just a little… SHIT!_ Accidentally, Serena has placed her hand on Jayne's chest as she tries to edge closer. In turn the big man wakes up with a howl and flips over, right onto Serena. She screams in shock as she is thrown backward, Jayne pinning her to the ground with his bulky body. Her torso is flattened by him and she promptly starts kicking, trying to dislodge the mercenary.

"What in tarnation…?" Jayne mutters, still half-asleep.

"GET YOUR RUTTIN' ASS OFFA ME COBB!" Serena screeches, wiggling and pounding at his chest with her fists. Jayne hastily moves off of her and she sinks back into the sand with a groan, trying to catch her breath. "Gorram it Jayne, what in the 'verse did you eat last night?" she pants. Utter silence greets her. She props herself up on her forearms and meets the startled gazes of the four men. She glares at Jayne, throws a sheepish look at Book, curiously tilts her head at the newcomer and ignores Mal to the best of her ability. When the silence continues she questions them with a dejected, "What?"

Nathan is the first to respond. His eyes, blue like Mal's but not like Mal's at the same time, are wider than the 'verse, and a grin is blossoming across his face. "Annchi?" he cries gleefully. Serena actually looks around in confusion, not understanding.

"Who?"

**And that's it because I'm about to fall asleep! And… aw what the hell, review please!**

**-Bella**


	7. Home

**This took less time than I thought it would… anyway, a big thank you to Emerald (guest)! A lone review but it made me grin and feel a lot better. Thank you so much, and I'm glad you loved it so much!**

**Also, found out a friend of mine was actually reading this (eek!) so I gotta do this: HI ANNA! SORRY FOR THE SPOILER! I HOPE YOU ENJOY! Ha ha she's gonna kill me one of these days if I keep ruining stuff for her…**

**Disclaimer: Pfft! Really? No.**

**Chapter Seven; Home**

"Wait so let me get this straight; you don't remember anything about your life before you crash-landed on Cassio?" This is the third time that Nathan Riis has asked Serena this question, and it's even giving Mal a headache at this point. The four of them and Jayne (once he fully woke up) retreated to a little cabin on the edge of the village to talk privately, and Serena is sitting on the table with her legs swinging back and forth. Crossed at the ankles, long legs on display with her forearms pushing her chest out… God Almighty, if he wasn't positive that she wanted nothing to do with him he'd think that she was doing it on purpose to torture him. Serena is not showing nearly the same level of impatience as he is, tilting her head to the side as she studies Nathan. Book is sitting at the table rubbing his temples and glancing between the supposed siblings. Jayne is staying close to the warrior woman, eyes watching Nathan warily when he gets near Serena. This has Mal raising his eyebrows in shock – since when does _Jayne_ _Cobb_ play bodyguard? Serena's response to her "brother" shifts his focus back to the conversation.

"Not exactly. I remember bits and pieces." Her hair spills over her shoulder as she cocks her head to the side. Her gaze is unreadable as it flickers over the man across from her. Mal doesn't recognize that look at first; he's never seen it directed towards any of his crew before. But somehow he knows what she's thinking, feeling, as she looks over his old army buddy. Serena doesn't trust him. She thinks that he's lying to her.

"Better than nothin' I guess," Nathan says jovially. The way he's watching Serena… it's like he's seen the dead rise. He couldn't possibly look happier. Mal remembers what it was like pulling Serena from her shuttle – terrified, in pain, crawling with reavers – and wonders what Nathan thought happened to her. Unlike the woman he trusts Nathan, though the admission that he's an experiment completely floors him. "Anything you want to know?" Nathan asks eagerly, missing the hardness in her eyes he is so overjoyed at having her back.

"I'd like to know somethin'," Jayne growls. "Why ain't ya been lookin' fer her? We've been with her fer three months now and I ain't seen nothin' 'bout some _Annchi Riis_ bein' missing." Nathan's smile droops at the corners but his eyes are still soft.

"Because that's not my real name," Serena says stiffly. Her eyes are tiny gold chips drilling holes into Nathan's face. "Some Alliance people we ran into called me Harmony. Harmony Thorne." The name passing through her lips triggers something in Mal, a memory half-hidden, a feeling that he's heard that name before… He loses the train of thought when Nathan grins sheepishly.

"Yeah well, you hated it. You much preferred what Māma always called you, and we all sort of adopted her last name. Annchi Riis is what you go by." _Annchi, the Chinese name for Angel. Angel is coming. Angel behind bars. Angel, Angel, Angel._ The word pounds through Mal's skull as he finally realizes where River got the odd nickname for Serena. _It ain't a nickname at all, it was – is – her name._ Serena is contemplating this information but Jayne is still incensed over the lack of care on Nathan's part.

"That's all fine an' mighty but that don't explain why you weren't lookin' fer her," he grouses. Serena is shaking her head at Jayne as Nathan is grimacing in a mixture of shame and pain.

"He thought she was dead," Book supplies. They all look towards him, Nathan in sorrowful understanding, the rest in confusion. "We had a funeral ceremony for her here and Nathan had a grave built for her – you – on your home planet." Nathan nods, turning to Serena.

"How much do you remember?" he asks. "I mean about right before you woke up with this lot here." Serena is tight-lipped and refusing to answer, glaring at Nathan. Her mistrust has multiplied ten-fold. Mal understands her reasoning; this story is too easy. Her landing was fairly explosive. Anyone in that tiny town could have radioed in the fact that her shuttle crashed. Hell because it was reavers they were probably calling in the moment they saw the bodies. The Alliance could know all about how she crashed. That might be how they even found her. And her brother just "happened" not to find her because he thought she was dead? If Mal doesn't know Nathan like he does – if he doesn't know the good man that was always yapping on and on about his family during the war – then he'd be in agreement with her.

"Close to nothing," Mal answers when it's apparent she won't. Serena turns accusatory and betrayed eyes to him but he ignores her for the moment. "She sometimes remembers flashes of some weird place but not much else. An' reavers, a course." Nathan smiles softly and Serena lurches up from her seat to put some more distance between herself and Mal, even though it brings her closer to the new soldier in the room. "I know you don't trust him, Serena, but it ain't gonna help ya ta keep this quiet," Mal informs her. Curiously, once he says her name Nathan stiffens, his smile dropping completely. Mal pushes the odd change out of his mind and focuses on his crew member. "He's an honest man, I used ta fight with him." She childishly turns her back on him before replying.

"Because you're _always_ so gorram good at reading yer damn war buddies," she says bitterly. Mal winces as memories of Tracey and his betrayal swarm him. It's silent until Nathan finally speaks.

"Two things. One, I am now completely sure you're telling the truth about not remembering." His voice is low and serious, nothing like the prior ecstatic tone he'd been using. Serena tilts her head to him in confusion, finally accepting that he's serious. "You've had to lie your way out of scrapes before… but not once, not even if it saved your life, would you use that name." Mal watches her eyes narrow.

"Care to explain?" Book says. Nathan shakes his head vigorously.

"No. Frankly that's her business, and the less she remembers, the better." Nathan's jaw stubbornly sets and Mal has to restrain the urge to burst out laughing. It is such a _Serena_ expression, when she's trying so hard not to blurt out what's on the tip of her tongue but she knows it will get her into trouble. Serena however has her _I will beat the answer out of you if I have to_ face on and Mal internally groans. He's certainly received _that_ one enough times. But Nathan isn't fazed in the slightest by her determination. If all the stories Nathan told were really about Serena as a child then he's probably been on the receiving end of a lot worse than that. "And, related to that, you're lying now." Serena startles as does everyone else.

"What are you -" she starts angrily. Nathan waves his hand lazily and the rest watch in astonishment as her lips close in the middle of her next syllable. It's as if a hand slapped over her mouth without the hand. Serena struggles for a moment, raising her hands to her lips and pressing on them, and Nathan grins darkly.

"What did you do to her?!" Jayne snarls as he jerks out of his seat, knife in hand and ready to plunge it into Nathan. The other man waves his other hand and Jayne is catapulted back into his seat. Mal and Book jump at the suddenness of the action while Serena forgets about her inability to talk to rush to Jayne's side.

"Knock it off Riis," Mal barks out. All this moving things without actually moving things… It's unnatural. He doesn't like it.

"I ain't hurt either of 'em Serg, I'm just trying to explain," Nathan says, the grin stretching.

"He's right son, back off on the power," Book cautions. "They're not used to it as we all are." Nathan sighs but nods. "Since you have so effectively stopped them from talking now might be a good time to explain why you would say something so… provocative."

"'S the truth Sheppard. The fact is memories or not, my sis doesn't tell people much about herself. She closes off, shuts up, and leaves you to guess. She'll say enough to get out of the questions and let people fill in the gaps." He jerks his head to Mal. "My guess is she said she remembered a place but refused to say anything else about it, so he just assumed she didn't remember the rest. But of course she does." He pointedly looks at Serena, who looks away with a flash of guilt on her face. Mal feels something very much like hurt coiling in his chest when he sees that. "So, Annchi –"

"I prefer Serena thank you," she says stiffly, glaring at him. Nathan shakes his head and rolls his eyes to hide the discomfort at using the name.

"Look, what do you actually remember?" he demands. Serena sighs and sits by Jayne, folding her arms over her chest.

"I remember being on some planet called Miranda, looking for something with some hulking black guy when we were attacked," she says. She hesitates, looking around the room, gazing shifting over Mal so fast he knows she feels guilty that he has to find out about her half-lies like this. "Reavers stormed down from behind us. I don't remember them landing but…" She swallows, and when she speaks, her voice cracks. It's obvious she's skipping over something yet again. "I fell off of something and that's about it." Mal sees Nathan swallow and Book reaches out a comforting hand towards him. He nods and grimaces, acknowledging the gesture but disregarding it as well.

"You remember the man's name?" Serena pauses once more.

"Jason. I remember calling him Jason." Nathan grips the table tightly, composing himself.

"Jason was my… he was my partner," he finally mumbles, glancing away. Serena sucks in a shocked breath. Not that Nathan had a male lover, but more because she knows how this ends. And now she knows why this hurt him so much. "The two of you were investigating something on Miranda. It was hell getting you there, let me tell you. Planet's surrounded by thousands and thousands of reavers. You two were the strongest fighter and strongest reader at the Farm so you both offered to go. Ran into trouble from the second you landed. You got back to the shuttle but Jason -"

"Didn't," she says softly. Nathan nods and takes in a shaky breath.

"The suit you were wearing, do you still have it? Black thing, destroyed helmet?" She shakes her head. "Well, we hooked those up to you two. We always wear 'em when we go on missions. They have monitoring systems in the helmet that helps us at home base check blood pressure, adrenaline levels, breathing and location at all times. They also say when someone dies. Jason's went off before you fell, and your helmet stopped working when the reavers attacked you inside the shuttle, so…"

"Naturally assumed she died," Mal finishes. Nathan nods. Serena sighs softly.

"Missions? Home base? What're you people, some kind a secret agency?" Jayne asks, looking very confused. Nathan smiles, shoving his emotions back under control. Mal snorts.

"Knowin' you, probably. You hated the Alliance more'n anyone I've ever met. An' that's sayin' somethin'." Nathan shrugs, unapologetic.

"When we fought in the war -"

"_We_? I was in the war?" Serena yelps. Nathan makes a face.

"Um… yeah." He looks quite unsettled by all the eyes on him. "Different division than me."

"Diyu, I would have been something like seventeen…"

"Fifteen to almost eighteen. You're close to twenty-four now," Nathan says automatically. "In other words you lied about your age to sign up. Lasted for more than a year before you… um…"

"While all this story tellin' is really shiny, how do we know yer tellin' the truth an' not just tryin' ta haul her off ta some Alliance camp or somethin'?" Jayne growls. Serena shakes her head at him but Mal is the one that sets the word.

"Riis won't hurt her an' I see no reason fer him ta be lyin' now," Mal snaps at his crew members. He avoids Serena's glare and turns to the preacher, who is reclining in his seat and watching them with bright eyes. "Book you've been workin' with Nathan fer awhile now, that right?"

"That's correct," Book says sagely. "He's not lying Serena." Serena gives him a look before laying down her verdict.

"I want River to talk to him before I believe that."

* * *

River was still asleep, so Serena walked out of the cabin and away from all of them. She needed to think. Her head was in a snarl, a mess of words and pictures dancing through her brain. _Miranda exists_, she thinks in a daze. The things she saw on that planet… God, she thought she had to be on a drug trip or exposed to some gas or other poison to have those images in her head. She rubs her shoulder where a thin scar rests, tiny in comparison to some of her other ones. If her memory is correct that's from when a reaver tried to bite her in the shuttle, seconds before her head slammed into the console. Serena shakes her head. _How much else in here is real?_

"Serena." She stops but doesn't turn around. Anger boils just beneath her skin, rising in a steady flush to her chest and cheeks. Mal walks very slowly around her, facing her directly. His blue eyes are cold, so very chilling, as he pierces her golden orbs with his gaze. "You lied to me." His voice is angry yet not nearly as furious as she is.

"And apparently that was a good thing!" she snaps back. She shoves lightly at his chest to get him to move and keeps walking. "Otherwise who knows what else _Nathan_ might know?" Her voice is full of scorn and barely masked hurt. Mal grabs her arm, spinning her around to face him. His eyes are beseeching her to understand, to understand why he did what he did, to understand why he felt he had to. There's something there in his eyes, something that betrays the source of these emotions – the anger, the hurt, and the desperation – and she feels breathless when she sees it.

"He can help you! If he is your brother, maybe he can help you with yer memory loss!" Mal yells at her. Serena shakes off the momentary lapse in her faculties, wrenching her arm back from him and scowling.

"What does it matter?" she screams back. "You're kicking me off your boat anyway!" She's accusing him of a fact she is uncertain about, but the tell-tale startled flash in his eyes confirms it. He truly _was_ considering kicking her out of the only home she has ever known. Serena feels the breath leave her body for an entirely different reason this time seeing that there. She doesn't hesitate this time; she takes off, running for all she is worth away from this man, away from the pain in her chest, away from the tears stinging her eyes. Her feet keep tangling in the sand, knees buckling because of the uneven and slippery surface, and more than once she crashes to the ground. Serena just gets back up again and keeps on sprinting, farther and farther away from all that confusion.

There's not much on Haven other than sand and ramshackle buildings. She runs until she's sure Mal can't find her before scaling the side of the nearest building. It takes her longer than normal; she used up whatever strength she had running away from Mal and now is flailing around half-way up to the roof. She doesn't remember how she got to the top, only knows when she collapsed, heaving, onto the roof. Her feet dangle over the side and swirl dozens of feet above the ground, the gap seeming so much farther now that she's here.

"You always did like to run from your problems," a voice rumbles to the side of her. She groans and turns her head into her arm.

"Can't you just go away and leave me alone?!" she demands, not looking as Nathan Riis avoids the pit-holes around her. "How'd you find me anyway?"

"River told me to head here," he tells her. Serena goes very still. _My mei-mei told him that?_ "She's worried about you. Said that you were speaking a jumble of nonsense." _Actually that does sound like her…_ Nathan sinks down onto the uneven roof beside her, cross-legged, patient with his sister. She's not willing to give him anything though. Not a word slips between her lips as she curls tighter into herself. "Serg ain't trying to hurt you honey. He's just trying to protect you the way he knows how." He's being so gentle with her, something she doesn't understand from someone she doesn't even know.

"Yeah I bet," she says dully. Nathan sighs and touches her arm. She flinches away from him and he withdraws immediately.

"Some things never change with you," he says, giving a laugh with no humor in it. She flips on her side to see him, gauge his expression, weigh his words properly. "You're always afraid of people," he clarifies. Serena snorts and props herself up on her elbows.

"I'm _not_ afraid of people," she says defensively. Nathan grins back at her, raising an eyebrow.

"Do you still do that thing where you start to say _love_ but then shift it into something like _care for_?" he asks. Her mouth drops open in shock as she flounders for an answer. _How did he know -?_ "You've done that since you were a kid. A six-year-old unable to say that simple word is a sight to behold, let me tell you." She snaps her jaw shut and clenches it to keep her question locked in her throat. Serena is _not_ going to succumb to his teasing, his goading; she's stronger than that. She won't be swayed by his untold stories, his way of playing off of what she wants. "Do you still dance?"

"No…" Nathan groans and she curses herself for answering him.

"Damn. What about reading? Singing?" She starts to nod before she realizes what she's doing. Serena scowls at him.

"This doesn't prove that you were my brother or that I trusted you before this." Nathan nods, still smiling a little. He reaches for something in his pocket, a small, paper-thin piece of metal and glass. _A recorder?_ Before she can ask he's tapped on the screen, bringing it to life.

"Nathan get that damn camera out of my face!" Serena's eyes widen as she hears her own voice laughing at the man next to her. Curious, she tilts her head and peers at the screen, enraptured as she sees herself grinning at a camera. There's something wrong with her eyes though, something that looks… dead. Like this is an act. Like she isn't really happy and she's only pretending to be to set people at ease. The recording shows her with a tube of lipstick in one hand and a hairbrush in the other. The Nathan in the recording is laughing at her.

"Come on sis, it's Echo's birthday! Be happy, be merry, go get hammered!" he's shouting at her. Serena in the video rolls her eyes and throws the lipstick at the camera, laughing when Nathan squeals and jumps out of the way. Serena raises her eyes from the video to Nathan, mouthing _Echo_? at him.

"She's your friend that lives with us. You rescued her from the Academy about a year ago," he explains. "She's back at the Farm with our mother and the rest of the family." Serena taps the screen, pausing it as she sits back. She studies the man across from her with eyes that are guarded but a heart hammering beneath her ribs. _Family. Farm. Home. _Nathan casually stops the video and puts it back into his pocket. "Do you believe me now?" Does she? She's not sure about that. The video shows that she was goofing around with him, but her eyes… her eyes in the video are giving her pause.

"Do you always carry that with you?" she counters. Nathan sighs and shrugs.

"Since I thought you died on Cassio," he says bluntly. _Ouch._ "It um… it has pictures of Jason too. I…"

"It's okay. You don't need to explain," Serena says softly, sitting up and placing her hand on his knee. Her tattoo flashes, the script curling across the inside of her arm. "I think I understand what that's like," she admits, looking from his arm to his hardening expression.

"Do you remember who that was?" he finally broaches cautiously. She shakes her head and his expression slackens with relief. She doesn't say that she's beginning to form a gut-wrenching guess though. She remembers flashes, a few images, sensations… And she thinks she knows.

But she won't say. Not to him because it's obviously a topic that hurts. She won't think it around River, who always seems to know too much about her pain anyway. And even when she was starting to trust Mal, let him hold her, kiss her, she wouldn't say because she didn't want him to see her as weak or more damaged than she already is. She carries that secret in her heart and will remember in her own time, at her own pace, with her own pain. If she's right she doesn't want to drag anyone down into that abyss with her.

Judging from Nathan's expression, it's what she did the first time.

* * *

Mal is sitting with Zoe when Serena and Nathan reappear. Zoe watches the younger woman coldly but she doesn't glance at either of them. She's talking with Nathan, the tiniest hint of a smile on her face. "He really her brother?" Zoe asks Mal finally. He shrugs.

"Pretty sure," he mumbles, watching the woman across the sand studiously ignoring him. Nathan and Serena approach River, who throws her arms around Serena and then Nathan. "River certainly seems ta think so." Zoe nods quietly and glares some more at Serena. "What's yer problem with her?" Mal finally lashes out at her. Zoe is startled by her friend's abrupt change in mood. "Ya were all fine an' shit with her a few weeks ago, constantly teasin' her 'bout sleepin' with me… So what's with the change?" Zoe's lips compress into a thin line and she looks away from him. "Zoe!"

"It doesn't matter sir," she says stiffly, rising from her seat. "It's not my decision about whether or not she stays or goes. Excuse me." With that she departs, seeking someone less likely to bite her head off or force her into admitting her deepest fears. _Gettin' good at that drivin' people away thing,_ Mal thinks to himself with a scowl. Nathan comes over to Mal then, interrupting his musings, Serena behind him with River sitting across her back as she laughs. Mal's heart clenches seeing her like that, so happy, carefree… forced.

"Hey Serg, Annchi – sorry, _Serena_," Nathan hastily corrects, and Mal notices the little wince he gives at the name, "was wondering if she could go to the Farm with me. She'd like to see it and possibly talk to our mother, if that's alright with you. I can deliver her back here in a few days." He's leaving the option open to both of them. He can tell Nathan to just keep Serena, bring her back, or it's up to her. For her part she can say thank you to him and leave without a backward glance. Maybe even take River – and of course Simon – with her. Or she can do the least likely option and say she wants to come back in a few days. They both have a few choices laid before them right now, each one a new path, a new destination, a new surprise.

But Mal doesn't let either of them choose. He doesn't want to take the chance that she will leave _Serenity_ for good. He's toyed with the idea of booting her when it seemed like she was a danger to the rest of his crew, but now that he is presented with this choice, with this possibility that she will be well and truly _gone_… he can't take it. He can't let her go that easily. A few days at the Farm, wherever that was, surrounded by people from a former life who love her, can show her an easier way than his brand of life, may persuade her to leave. And damn it, it's a selfish thing for him to do, but Mal has let too many people he cares about just walk up and leave him without fighting in the least. Not again. He's not going to let her turn into a repeat of Inara.

"You know what? How 'bout we come with you. Let her get settled there, see her folks…" he trails off, an invitation but not one. River leans her head on top of Serena's and winks at him, grinning where the other woman can't see it. Serena's smile tightens at the words but she otherwise refuses to betray her thoughts on the matter. Nathan gives Mal a discreet thumbs-up before turning with feigned concern to his sister. Serena catches onto the game immediately as his expression registers but she does nothing more than glare at Mal for a brief second.

"Is that alright Serena? Do you mind if they come with us?" Her nostrils flare just a tiny bit and her jaw clenches. Faced with a question like that she only has one real answer to give. It's unfair to do to her and they all know it.

"Of course not," she says with forced cheer. "I bet Kaylee would love to be outdoors for a little while."

* * *

River prances through _Serenity_, excited at the prospect of the Farm. Nathan was thinking such pretty words about it, flashing pictures at her, and she cannot wait to run through the thick meadows and explore Serena's old room. Serena was seething as she climbed onto Nathan's ship, angered by the ease with which they tricked her. But River is overjoyed that they did. Maybe now she will have time and a beautiful place to fix what two people who are so good for each other managed to fracture. _Fracture,_ not destroy; with enough willpower they can easily get back to where they were. Look at Kaylee and Simon! They were thwarting each other at every turn, but now they are enjoying regular intercourse and the happy feeling of being in love.

Zoe and Wash complained a little about going there but otherwise were silent about it. Zoe is wondering why she hates Serena so much. River knows but she wants to see if the former soldier can identify it for herself. Wash is mostly just scared of her. He likes the woman well enough but he's afraid of what she could mean for any potential child he and Zoe have. Understandable. Jayne's worried about her, worried what this new family might mean for her, even more concerned about the repercussions of her past. Mal is distracted with his confusion about the whole mess. And Simon and Kaylee… well they're taking advantage of the few hours from Haven to the Farm they have.

River dances over to the nearest cortex and turns it on, giving Serena's ship a wave. The other woman appears very soon, and River grins when she sees the happy expression on her face. "River! Hey sweetheart!"

"Howdy River! You're just in time for the ending of the story of Annchi and the –" Serena grabs something nearby and chucks it at him. He yelps when it connects.

"She does _not_ need to hear about that!" Serena screeches at her brother. Nathan just laughs.

"Hey you were pretty happy during!" Serena groans and drops her head into her hands as River laughs. "Why are you so surprised that you're not a virg -"

"Nathan you say one more word to her and I'll bash you with the nearest wrench!" Serena calls. River snorts.

"Kaylee and Simon are having intercourse right now. I have to listen to it too." She grimaces. "Hearing about your sexual exploitations will not only be the lesser evil but will also be a welcome relief as Nathan is suggesting they are capable of amusement." Serena rolls her eyes while her brother crows.

"See she gets it!" Nathan shouts. Serena screams some words in Chinese at him while he laughs.

"She doesn't need to hear about that," she grumbles. River only smiles.

"I hear enough about it from you when you think about Mal," she says innocently. Serena's cheeks color on the screen and she makes _stop_ gestures frantically. Suddenly Nathan's there, shoving her out of the way to talk to River.

"So you noticed that too? Have they slept together yet?" he asks eagerly. Serena makes a screeching noise of protest and indignation but the conspirators ignore her.

"No, but until a few days ago they were seriously contemplating it," River tells him. Nathan nods slowly.

"The Hands incident. Good for you by the way, I always hated those bastards. Creepy guys…" Nathan says to Serena.

"What makes you think after the way that idiotic, self-absorbed jackass treated me that I want to -" Serena splutters. Nathan waves her off flippantly, winking at River. She likes him enormously already.

"You're ruining this for me!" he complains. "I want to finally set you up in a real relationship and you're butting in with your gorram whining."

"Do I even get a say in this?" Serena asks crossly. Her siblings grin.

"Nope," they reply at the same exact time.

* * *

They annoy Serena for the rest of the time. She doesn't admit it but she loves every single second of it. For the past few days she's been treated differently because of what she is. Simon and Wash so wary of her, Zoe hating her, Jayne feeling like he needs to protect her, Book studying her, Kaylee's determination to force the other to accept her, the captain - _captain, captain, captain. Always comes back to the ruttin' captain doesn't it? _she thinks bitterly but also dejectedly – with his whole mess… she loves how these people know she's not normal and they don't give a hóuzi gǒu shǐ about it. They're not exactly normal either but still she's enjoying herself. Serena misses how the entire _Serenity_ crew used to treat her like family. _I'll gain their trust again_¸ she vows.

It never once occurs to Serena to leave _Serenity_. Mal's fear that she will leave is the source of his desire to stay by her. To Serena this decision of his makes no sense; if he was going to get rid of her anyway, why is he insisting they need to come along? She doesn't understand because she never entertained, not even during the moments of fury with the captain, the idea of leaving willingly. She loves _Serenity_: she loves the catwalks, the hidden compartments, the oldness of the boat, and the lov- _warmth_ spilling from each and every wall. Each member of the crew has put their heart and soul into that ship and it shows. That's home to her. The Farm is just another adventure, another job, someplace to stay, get acquainted and then leave. No, what Serena is terrified of is that _Serenity_ will fly off into the Black and leave her behind. She won't admit it but every pore leading into her flesh oozes with this fear. Her elation when River waved her is partly due to the relief that it wasn't a call saying goodbye.

Serena _is_ excited to meet these people that, according to Nathan, are her family. She's immensely curious about her old life even though she doesn't want it back. But they are not her real family. Despite the quirks and mistrust being thrust upon them all right now the crew is her family.

"Alright now, we gotta land. Talk to you on the ground?" Nathan calls to River. Serena sees her little mei-mei nod enthusiastically before signing off. Nathan leans back and grins at her, so she playfully scowls.

"Why not just marry us while you're at it?" she grumbles good-naturedly, refocusing on her brother and his and River's schemes regarding her love life. He actually stops grinning as he contemplates the idea. Horror spills through her as he truly considers marrying her off to Mal. "Shit, that was a joke!" she shrieks. His serious expression doesn't let up.

"There's actually a church not too far from the Farm…"

"I swear to God, the 'verse and everything in between, Nathan Riis, if you even _attempt_ to trick me into marrying Malcolm Reynolds, I will steal a number of drugs from Simon to make sure that not only will you die, you will die painfully," Serena warns him, thumping him lightly on the back of the head as she passes him to sit down in her seat. He scowls at her and rubs the back of his head roughly.

"Um, ow?" Okay maybe not that lightly.

He sits across from her and starts flipping switches, grumbling and rubbing his head every so often. It's a long time before he speaks again. "Simon was asking me if it was normal for you to pass out after fighting like you did." Serena was looking out the window as they broke atmo but she looks back to Nathan, finding him watching her expectantly.

"Is it?" she asks curiously, tilting her head to the side. Nathan shrugs.

"Depends on a number of things. Blood loss, concussions, how much exercise you've gotten up to the point… My guess is it was the exercise one just because he was describing how much you've been doing up to that point. It wasn't nearly as much as before you went missing."

"Really? How much was I getting before?" she asks. Nathan huffs a small breath.

"This is weird, you not knowing about what we do," he confesses. He clears his throat and watches the window. They're getting closer to the ground so the glass is stained faintly orange from the heat surrounding the ship. She doesn't comment on the _do_ yet, planning on telling him her intentions after he's done explaining. "We hunt reavers, so…"

"We do _what?_" Serena exclaims, forgetting altogether that she needs to tell him she's not going to be staying. Nathan actually smiles, a roguish grin that if he was interested in girls would mean he would have no shortage of lady friends. She suspects that that grin even converts a few men.

"Hunt reavers. The Academy is notorious for using them against its enemies," Nathan explains, rolling back his sleeve. She didn't notice before but he is wearing a long shirt and long pants, completely covering his limbs. When his sleeve hits his elbow she sees that his skin is marred by nearly as many scars as hers is. "We find them and kill them so they can't be used. You know, in between springing experiments free and all." Serena studies his arms and then looks down at her own scarred flesh, pondering…

"Hey I have really bad burn scars on my legs, looks almost like acid…" She trails off, inviting him to explain. Last time she checked reavers don't spit acid onto their victims to pre-digest them before eating them. Nathan rolls his eyes.

"That's called a moronic twenty-year-old should have dropped the ruttin' engine when I told her to instead of insisting on picking it up," he grouses. Seeing her confused expression he elaborates, "The engine to one of the ships broke down and we needed to prop it up. You insisted on doing it even though it was leaking fluid and… well…"

"Why would I do something _that_ stupid?" she snorts, not understanding at all why she would take such an obvious risk. Nathan's eyes flash again and Serena immediately regrets the question.

"It's a long story," he says. He falls silent and she doesn't press. They stay that way until they land.

When the doors to the ship open Serena gasps. Nathan's cheerfulness returns in full force as she whirls on the spot, looking all around her. Everywhere her eyes land is _green_. Green fields, green trees, hell even the sunlight streaming down is tinted green. Vegetable and fruit fields are to the right, sprawling for acres and acres to the right. If she's not mistaken a little patch of that are strawberries; she doesn't need to hazard a guess where Kaylee is going to sprint to first. Serena quickly chucks off her shoes, picking them up so she can run through the grass. It's lush and cool beneath her toes, rising up and pushing against the soles of her feet as they slap against the ground. She spins a few meters from the ship to look at Nathan, laughing hysterically. "This is _incredible_!" she shouts, twirling to run back towards the forest. Her legs pump with surprising strength considering her condition, the dress she threw on before leaving _Serenity_ the night before swirling about her knees. The dark purples fabric billows about her as she streaks through the green all around her, laughing so hard her chest aches with it. The sun warms the little planet until it feels like a sauna, forcing Serena to lose the jacket she has on and run in nothing but the dress. She hits the tree line and then expertly flips back around, running full pelt back to Nathan, jacket and shoes in her hands. He just waits patiently for her to return, a grin so wide it must hurt his face to maintain it.

"Farm's that way," he tells her, pointing in the opposite direction. She laughs, feeling exuberant, as he places a hand on her hip and pushes lightly in the right direction. Serena lets him but eventually moves away, the heat of his hand stifling in this humidity.

"What planet is this?" she asks, in awe of the rush of green all around her. Every planet they've been on so far has been dry, dead and sandy. This little place is practically bursting with life.

"Demeter. Pretty off the grid; we only terra-formed it a few years ago. Most of the people here are avoiding the Alliance in one way or another so no one is going to say anything about us being here or risk getting caught themselves. We maintain a ranch here that employs a lot of the people _not_ hiding from the Alliance, so they're not blabbing either. We do pretty well for ourselves," he says modestly. Serena skips lightly by his side, feeling a bit like a child, chalking it up to the place around her getting to her.

"Shouldn't we wait for everyone else?" She asks suddenly, stopping in her tracks as she realizes in her euphoria she forgot about her family. Guilt crashes over her but Nathan just laughs.

"Don't worry Rena, River'll find us. You were so busy hiding you didn't hear me give her directions," he teases. Serena is a little startled as the nickname passes through his lips so effortlessly but shrugs it off. _Serena_ seems to bother him quite a bit; at least he's meeting her half-way on this one.

The woman doesn't know what to expect, but what she encounters certainly isn't it. When she thought_ ranch_ she thought of something similar to the place Mal had described from his childhood; a one room building only covering a small little area. But it's not small in any retrospect. It's – "Holy shit it's a gorram _mansion_!" she yelps. Nathan smiles a little shyly.

"We have a lot of people living there," he says defensively. Her mouth is hanging down by her knees and she feels light-headed. _Oh dear God…_

"You never said we were rich!" she hisses frantically. _What are they going to think of me when they see this?_ she thinks frantically. Serena knows all about the crew's opinion of wealthy people. What will they think of her when they see _this_ –

She isn't allowed to dwell on those thoughts, for as they approach, the door to the mansion-ranch swings out and a streak of dark hair billows out. Serena barely has time to register that it's a girl before she's being knocked over by the tightest hug she remembers ever experiencing. "Well I was going to say look what I found…" Nathan jokes as Serena squirms underneath the girl.

"Um… hi?" she squeaks, unable to say much else with such a crushing grip around her diaphragm. A loud but husky laugh straight into her ear has her cringing but giggling a little. The girl pulls back to reveal a normally tough-looking girl but beautiful woman with dark eyes, dark hair, and lots of dark makeup with a majority of it running down her face from her tears of joy. She crushes Serena in another bone-crunching hug that has the poor girl groaning.

"Oh my God when your ship went down I thought…" she gulps. She finally realizes that Serena is startled and uncomfortable with the attention, sheepishly drawing away to give her space. "Sorry, I forgot, no memory… hi, I'm Echo." She pulls back, wiping her eyes quickly and sticking out her hand. Serena slowly grabs it, a slow smile creeping over her uneven lips as she feels the strength in the girl's grip.

"Serena," she answers with a small laugh. Echo's expression unlike Nathan's doesn't waver. Instead she wraps her arm around her shoulders and draws her towards the mansion.

"Nathan called ahead and told us about this," Echo explains, gesturing to Serena. "So we're all going to introduce yourselves and show you around. Don't be afraid to ask anything, and don't trust the boys, that one included. They'll lie to you for a laugh." Echo jerks her head back towards Nathan, who squawks indignantly.

"Hey, this _boy_ should get some credit -" he splutters. Echo just rolls her eyes at him and guides Serena over to the house. In the doorway is a petite older woman with almond eyes, dark irises, ivory skin and the brightest, happiest smile she has ever seen before.

"This is Jiao," Echo says quietly when they get closer. "She's your mother." Serena, upon hearing this, bows politely to the woman. A faint blush stains her cheeks as she rises to see the tears in Jiao's eyes.

"Gǎnxiè nín jiēshòu wǒ," Serena says quietly. _Thank you for receiving me_. Jiao stares at her for a moment before grabbing her hand and, with surprising strength for a woman her age, pulls her into an embrace so caring and warm that Serena almost feels like crying herself.

"Ah, Serena! Huānyíng huí jiā wǒ měilì de nǚ'ér." She does cry then, wrapping her arms around the woman in return. _Welcome home my beautiful daughter_.

**Wow that was kind of sappy… I didn't know I could do that…**

**Text box is below, please take thirty seconds and write me a review! Thank you!**

**-Bella**


	8. Still

**I just have a couple of words on this chapter. One: Echo is **_**based**_** off of Faith from Buffy, she has the name out of Dollhouse, BUT SHE IS NOT EITHER OF THESE CHARACTERS! If she's like them, that's pretty much a coincidence, but really it's up to you guys. There will be other characters that pop up from Joss' series (all my favorites… yeah, yeah, I'm biased…).**

**Two: If you guys read my last story you know what happened in the previous chapter eight! Whoo-boy! Seriously, these guys were pissing me off with all the dancing-around-each-other-with-excuses-thrown-in. And apparently, the other characters agreed, because they offered up all kinds of good suggestions. Anna honey, I hope I do "jealous" Mal justice in your eyes, and for the record, you already knew what I was like BEFORE you read this. **

**Oh yeah, Mark (I know that was for chapter five, but I just got your review); the reason they forgive River but not Serena is **_**because they haven't seen what River's like yet!**_** Think about it; this timeline is between the show and movie. River killed three men but only Kaylee saw it (notice she's forgiven Serena immediately in this). In the movie, they didn't trust her at first and they had to **_**relearn**_** to trust that she won't kill them. River's killing spree will come soon. Hopefully Serena will help with that.**

**PLEASE NOTE RATING CHANGE! THANK YOU AND ENJOY!**

**Chapter Eight; Stay**

_Serenity's_ crew is even more amazed than Serena when they come across the white mansion. Well, most of them are; River is sprinting ahead of the rest, pounding on the door before they're even a yard away. It swings open so fast that someone must have been standing there waiting for them. Sure enough, a slight man with pale skin, pale blue eyes, dark brows and slicked back light hair is standing there waiting. He coolly gazes at the crew and then back at River's bright smile. "Rena, right?" he asks, a thick accent coating his words. "Come on in." He steps back and disappears, River hot on his heels. Mal barely catches the door before it slams in his face. Scowling he steps over the threshold.

It's nothing like the size would have one believe about it. Mal had a nervous itch along his shoulders, the unpleasant feeling of being in a world usually shut to him suddenly being thrust in his face overwhelming. He expected opulence to an obnoxious degree, everything in its place, so clean one would feel like a disgusting parasite just standing in such perfectness. But the door reveals an enormous room with weathered floors, paneled walls hung with dozens of pictures (most of them crooked), a scratched and well-used dining table that could easily seat forty, a collection of mismatched chairs, and an immaculate kitchen with a woman of Asian descent casually humming as she chops vegetable. _Real_ vegetables. She looks up in surprise when she sees the newcomers before breaking into a toothy smile Mal instantly recognizes; it's the same smile Serena adorns whenever she is truly happy.

"Hello! I am Jiao," she calls, snagging a bowl of fresh sliced fruit before making her way towards them. She offers it to them, still grinning that smile that makes her look like an older duplicate of Serena despite the fact they are obviously not related. Mal's chest continues to squeeze as Kaylee shrieks a little and snags a strawberry. She moans appreciatively as the fruit bursts in her mouth, spilling cold and sweet and thick over her tongue. Simon, of course, notices. Jiao's smile softens as she surveys Mal and the rest. The way her gaze lingers, so piercing yet gentle, is yet again like Serena. A shiver passes over him at the feeling of being stripped bare of all his defenses and reasoning. He doesn't need to make a guess as to who this woman is. "My son called ahead, told me that you were coming. You must be Captain Reynolds," she says to Mal. "Please, make yourselves comfortable."

"Do you need help with anything?" Simon asks her, ever the gentleman. Kaylee practically purrs at his manners, eyes sparkling with a tell-tale glint. Mal's eyebrows lift and he has to remind himself that he cannot throttle Simon in public. Maybe later. Jiao smiles and makes shooing motions, long-fingers dancing gracefully through the still air.

"No, no. Please, make yourselves at home. There is more than enough room." That smile widens and she chuckles a little. "There is a shooting range out back, the library is down the hallway to your right behind the red door, and the kitchen is well stocked. Rena mentioned that you had nothing to eat but protein packs. Help yourselves. Dinner will be ready soon." She gives each a smile and the occasional hug to each of them before making her way back into the kitchen. Zoe and Wash immediately leave the house, gazing in wonder at the sprawling green spaces, strolling hand in hand and openly gawking. Jayne streaks so fast for the shooting range that he nearly knocks Mal over in the process. Simon, despite her protests, goes to assist Jiao in the kitchen. Kaylee follows after him, eyes on the bowls of fruit and vegetables.

They leave Mal to wander around the house.

He's not quite sure he's actively looking for Serena. Okay no he is; he just doesn't want to admit it. The set of his shoulders is stiff, his stride more of snapping legs than actual steps. He doesn't know what to make of the luxury Serena was born into. She fought in the war. She had tough parts to her life. But this? This is almost too easy. His head is throbbing a little as he remembers his own mother and her desperate attempts to keep everyone alive on the less-than-thriving farm he grew up on. Rich folk have never made Mal comfortable. So why does this place not feel like the home of rich folks?

He looks around at the pictures on the walls, his thought process slowing a little as he takes them in. There are as many pictures of the farm hands as there are of the children who grew up here. And the odd part is… they all look the same. Serena, who he picks out a little too easily, is often found wearing hand-me-down shirts and torn jeans. Nathan is usually depicted as sweaty and shirtless from a hard day's work. They look beyond happy. Mal finds pictures of Serena from back to when she was about eight years old. He smiles at the little girl with dirt streaked on her cheek, curls in pigtails, and the largest smile he has ever seen on a child before splitting her cheeks. Nathan, a few years older, is behind her with one arm pretending to strangle her while the other waves at the camera. They look adorable and happy. Nothing like he has been led to believe the Academy did to them.

Mal shakes his head and keeps walking. River seems happy a majority of the time, and she's rutted up so badly they can't even reach her sometimes. Pictures can lie so easily.

Mal traces his way through the large house, looking but not looking for Serena. He finds more pictures – of her dancing, singing, working, fighting, of her brother, of other people he doesn't recognize – and sometimes he'll see small table shrines with a photo and candles. He drifts through the house and sees how she must have grown up, happy and healthy, with no thought beyond the present. He feels jealousy burn deep in his core. _If she had it so perfect why did she fight against the Alliance?_ a traitorous voice whispers in her mind. He shakes his head, unable to answer the question. Before he can recollect his thoughts he hears voices, muted and distant. He pauses and they swim closer, not clear but distinct. Mal trails after the sounds.

"Okay, seriously, _what_ is wrong with you? Hello, biggest ruttin' closet in the 'verse and you go for the bookshelves?!" Mal doesn't recognize the slightly throaty female voice, but he would know the other voice anywhere.

"They're clothes Echo. I _have_ clothes." It's his Serena. She sounds slightly irritated but mostly amused, as if the comment had been made before. Mal treads lightly so as to not alert the people inside of his presence. The other woman huffs.

"Yeah but not _these_ clothes! You're wearing a hand-me-down dress from Kaylee when there are silk. Dresses. In. There!" Mal smirks a little as Serena starts laughing. He's never seen her around clothes before but the thought that she would ignore a wardrobe probably more expensive than his ship for books just seems so… _her_. He hears a rustle of paper and wonders what she's looking at.

"What's your point? These are _amazing_ books. River come look at this! It's an entire collection of Shakespeare!" She sounds elated and happy, beyond happy. River giggles in reply.

"What about this one?" The reader sounds innocent and playful as she responds. Mal is close enough to the door that he can see River has hung a vibrant red dress around her neck. She twirls back and forth so the crepe fabric swishes about her, catching the sunlight. Silver threads gleam from deep within the fabric, the thousands of beads on the bodice glimmering with barely restrained delight at finally seeing the sun again. Mal can only imagine the way the fabric would drape on Serena's tall and lean frame… how the corset-style bust would highlight her trim waist and accent her breasts to perfection… how easily he could peel the thread-like straps down her scarred yet still soft shoulders… "Feels like fall and romance," River drawls with a giggle. Mal turns his head just in time to see Serena snap the book she was holding closed. A plume of dust bursts in her face and she wrinkles her sharp nose, waving a hand in front of her face. He's struck by how _adorable _she is right now, covered in dust and grime from hunting through her no longer used room, grinning at River. His heart swells, rises in his chest…

"Well, that'd be accurate." Mal jumps at the male voice, swiveling his head to see the pale man leaning back against what looks to be a wall made of mirrors. He's resting his hands against a long pole running through the center of the mirrors, pushed slightly away from the wall. The dark eyebrows quirk up as he studies Serena with a slightly pompous air. "Certainly used it enough times to catch some poor bloke's attention." Mal's hand convulses on the doorknob while Serena rolls her eyes. He glares down at the traitorous appendage but it is only conveying what he is feeling inside, the crushing turmoil deep within him as he hears this.

"Yeah, you certainly liked it Will, when you two were dating," a dark haired girl chirps. She must be Echo. Serena snorts and riffles through her bookshelf, arms disappearing up to her elbows. Will smirks a little.

"A little. Ms. Casanova here though preferred the term 'hump buddies' as I recall." Mal's fury rises through his body, but he waits for Serena's response, knowing that she'll put him –

"That sounds like me," Serena chuckles. Mal is off the door and retreating quickly, unable to bear hearing any more of the conversation. The irony rests in Serena's questions regarding her and Will's previous relationship, to which he clarified they never _actually_ slept together, all of which Mal misses. Just like how he misses Echo crossing over to Will and pressing herself into his body, kissing his neck swiftly, as soon as she's sure Mal has left the room. And, most importantly, both he and Serena miss the looks and smirks exchanged between Will, Echo and River as soon as they are sure the parties in question can't see them.

Dinner that night is loud as all hell as the entire Riis clan descends on the table. Jiao outdid herself in the kitchen with Simon's help: roasted vegetables, hearty stews, fruits coated in a variety of dips, and an actual roasted turkey grace the table. Serena sits with Echo, Will, Nathan, Jiao, Kaylee (who of course sits next to Simon), River and Jayne. Mal, Zoe and Wash become scattered with the other farm hands. Serena is enjoying herself, but she finds herself looking over at Mal constantly. A frown furrows her brow every so often, her head tilting as she studies him. He seems unnecessarily tense as he talks with Zoe, shoulders hunched and lips stiff with some inner emotion. But then Nathan will ask her about something she did while on _Serenity_, or Kaylee and Simon will try to tantalize each other with their feet only to rub against someone else, or Jiao will insist she eat more, or Jayne will start hollering about the shooting range, or River will start playing with her cutlery, or any number of people at the table will reach over to touch her to see if she's real, and her attention will be drawn away from her captain. The touching thing startles her so badly at first; the slightly rough but mostly smooth hands running over her shoulders or touching her hair are not River's silky hands or Mal's rough digits. She smiles slightly and bears it though because, to them, she is like a gift from heaven. She saw the shrine they made for her in the house, littered among the dozens of others for those who had passed away, and she saw the grave next to Jason's in the garden. It was unnerving knowing that the white pedestal with _Annchi Riis_ carved into it is supposed to be for _her_. In a lot of ways though Annchi Riis _is_ dead; Serena is only a substitute for the girl they all lost.

"So, Rena, meet any cute guys or hot hook-ups in the Black?" Echo asks loudly, shoveling food into her mouth. Serena flushes and looks away, her eyes encountering Mal's piercing blue eyes. He can't have heard the question… could he?

"Echo, do not taunt her so!" Jiao chastises half-heartedly. Serena glances at her, finding it odd that the motherly figure isn't putting a stop to such nonsense. The older woman has a sparkle in her eyes though as she looks at Echo, who grins and shrugs.

"Yeah super girl, meet anyone?" Will rumbles, glancing down the table before sneaking his fingers around Echo's waist. The dark haired woman grins and then swiftly turns her attentions back to Serena. She blushes and looks down at her plate.

"There weren't exactly a lot of people out there," she hedges. Jayne snorts.

"Naw, but you an' Mal were certainly makin' 'nough eyes at each other," he grumbles. "Made the rest a us sick." Kaylee giggles and even Simon grins at that. Serena becomes a mauve shade and keeps her gaze on her plate.

"Yeah the tension between them was unbearable on Haven! I wasn't sure if they were going to kill each other or rut each other," Nathan supplies. Jiao glares at him and he quickly looks at his plate, shoveling more food into his mouth.

"There is nothing between me and Mal," Serena states firmly.

"'Cept a layer of clothing," Kaylee mumbles around a chunk of apple wedged in her cheek. Serena kicks her under the table – or at least she thinks she does until Jayne yelps instead. Oh well, he deserved it too.

"I thought I was going to explode from listening to you two!" Echo says dramatically. Serena raises an eyebrow and the other woman smiles a little self-deprecatory grin. "Oh right, you don't know. I'm a reader." Serena's surprise must show on her face as Echo hastens to explain. The other woman just seems so _normal!_ She feels guilty even thinking the words but they're true. River smiles a little to let Serena know she doesn't mind the thought. "I'm not as strong as River. They only had a couple of weeks on me before you sprung me out. I get more of an _echo_ of thoughts, feelings. I'm closer to an empath than I am to a telepath." _Ah, that explains the nickname…_ Simon leans around Kaylee to eagerly question her, ecstatic to meet someone with his sister's condition. Echo forgets Serena and engages in conversation with Simon. Will rolls his eyes as he leans forward, cupping Serena's hand on the table.

"Don't mind them," he says dismissively. "She'll babble anyone's ear off if they let her." He grins and Serena feels her own lips answer his smile. There's something about Will that she instantly likes, something warm beneath the hard exterior. He explained how they leaned on each other during the war (they were from the same division) and how she relied on him after she was rescued from the Academy four years previously. They never went anywhere physical – she was too damaged after her stint in the Academy for that – but they did have an emotional relationship. Until Echo came along. Apparently when she was Annchi she threw the two of them into that relationship. Serena can see why; the way those two _flow_ together is incredible. They might as well be two sides of the same person. But she does wonder… how lonely was she? "So, everything going well so far? Liking your room?" She nods.

"It's a good space. I hope I can take some of those books with me." The words are out before she can stop them. Nathan goes very still but Will just grins.

"Of course. They're yours after all." Nathan begins to cough.

"Hang on, what do you mean _take -_"

"Nathan, darling, isn't it obvious?" Jiao asks suddenly. Her dark almond eyes are kind and knowing as she surveys Serena's rapidly reddening face. "Her heart belongs to someone else. When he leaves, she will." She opens her mouth at the same time Nathan begins to stutter protests. Nothing comes out this time though. Jiao smiles and digs into some fruit. "I always did like leaders myself," the older woman says with a wink. Serena blushes harder and subtly checks to see if Mal heard that, ignoring her brother. The frustrated expression on his face means he didn't, relief flooding her in thick cascading waves. She breathes through her nose until her heart slows before resuming dinner.

Mothers always do seem to know before anyone else.

Things should've been perfect.

Kaylee and Simon were disappearing at every turn for the privacy they weren't afforded on _Serenity_, something he was _not_ happy about, but Jiao gave them their own room so Mal couldn't rightly argue. River thankfully slept in Serena's room with the older woman so he knew she wasn't sleeping with _Will_. Jayne was happily chasing after farm girls (and if his grins later the next day were anything to go by they were not fruitless hunts) and practicing shooting with Serena. Wash and Zoe were stealing some much needed couple time and Zoe was even being civil to Serena. River had been almost completely lucid the entire time they were there. Mal had even seen Serena dance a few times, both ballet and ballroom (with _Will_ so that took some of the magic out of the experience). Serena was getting to re-know her family, becoming a part of them again, and the rest of the crew was having stable time away from danger and hardship. They all pitched in to help, of course, but the feeling of being relaxed had clung to them all even as they sweated in the fields. The two of them had even managed to hold a conversation, cold and polite as it was, before they broke out arguing again. He should have been happy because his crew was happy.

But Mal was miserable.

They had been on Demeter for three weeks now, and the day before this he had gone into his bunk on _Serenity_ while doing a now-routine check to find a neatly stacked set of bills on his bed. There was a healthy sum of cash there, even more than what those two rich fellas had given them for that pre-Serena job. He'd stared at it and felt the bottom of his stomach plummet to his feet. He didn't need to ask to know who it was from. She was paying Mal for protecting her for those precious three months. That meant their time is almost over.

When he'd found her later Jayne was hugging her, spinning her around as she laughed. He'd been startled to see tears in the big man's eyes as he thanked her profusely. Serena had just shaken her head and told him she was happy to help. Mal had waited for Jayne to leave before talking to her. The discussion had started with him politely asking how River was doing, but ended in a screaming match. He winced as he recalled _petty thief_ and _rich lady_ had been thrown at each other repeatedly. They'd eventually stormed off from each other in tears.

Which leaves him where he is now, sitting in his room, staring at his ceiling and completely lost as to how to keep Serena on _Serenity_.

"NATHAN RIIS WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY CLOTHES?!" Serena's shriek of outrage has Mal startling off the bed, landing on his back painfully. He's stumbling to his feet and sprinting from the room only to run smack into Nathan, or rather the clothes upon clothes he has hanging midair in front of him. Three weeks in and Mal _still_ isn't used to Nathan's ability. Echo and River he can at least deal with, but floating stuff? No.

Mal is on the floor so he sees when Serena's door flies open and the woman herself steps out. His jaw hits the door as it becomes obvious that not only is she soaking wet (and that image alone is enough to send his blood pounding in the wrong direction) but she is only wearing a towel. Nathan scampers over Mal, revealing the captain to the experiments gold eyes. She shrieks and darts back into her room, locking it with a loud snap. "I left the dress there! Be ready in half an hour!" Nathan shouts. He's laughing as Serena screams abuse at him through the wood before falling silent.

"Riis, what in the gorram 'verse are ya doin'?" Mal hisses, clambering to his feet again. Nathan chuckles and gestures to the clothes hanging in front of him.

"Echo and Kaylee planned a girl's night, and they asked me to not only accompany them to the club – which means playing fake boyfriend when necessary - but to get Serena to go. Harder said than done. Especially since it means tight and hot dresses. Which means she has to have only one choice in clothing or she ain't gonna wear it." He's smirking as he dumps the clothes into his own room, rubbing his hands together in triumph. Mal's thoughts are still stuck on _tight_, which is actually a word that can describe his pants at the moment. "She's all yours Echo!"

Mal is in awe and fear of the barrage of women storming in and out of Serena's room. Kaylee totters in on a pair of spiky black heels, hair in a towel and body in a tight blue robe Mal wishes to _never_ see on her again, but comes out in the stunning red dress River modeled so long before. On Serena's thin body it would look beautiful; on Kaylee's much shorter and curvier physique it turns her into a sensual model that even had Mal looking. Before wanting to gouge his eyes out, and then his ears when he hears Simon's appreciative gasp and… other things. Echo is stunning in a midnight blue long dress with a slit to her knee and spaghetti straps, wicked black boots on her feet and her dark hair up in a complicated knot. She is so brazen most of the time that Mal doesn't even blink at her attire. She gives him a wink before dragging Serena out after her.

That's when he knows there's going to be blood tonight.

She's fighting Echo but not hard, the hair that has been meticulously straightened hanging in a mixture of braids and slick waves down her back. Without the curl her long amber hair curls at her waist, flowing all about her body. She's wearing makeup, something Mal has never seen her in before: glittery silver gunk around her eyes, thin lines of dark kohl added to that, a pearly white substance turning her face into a smooth white canvas, something black on her lashes, and a faint pink shimmer on her lips. But that dress… that dress is what draws his attention. It's longer than the other women's, pooling around her ankles as she tries to wedge her feet into black flats. The thing is sleeveless but God Almighty, it has a plunging neckline down to her navel, tiny golden hooks the only thing keeping it up over her breasts and shoulders. When she turns he sucks in a breath because _as if the front wasn't enough_, the damn thing is a halter-top. In other words, her back is completely exposed. When Serena straightens she seems him staring at her, and she flushes, the makeup covering her cheeks unable to hide the color.

"Jayne, you comin'?" Echo shouts, grinning at Mal before dragging Serena away from him. The amber-haired beauty stumbles, unwilling to turn from Mal's heated gaze.

"Jayne?!" he practically squeaks, breaking out of the heavy haze slipping into his mind at the name. Echo nods with a flirtatious grin.

"We promised him women if he watches our backs. See you later Captain! Don't stay up!" She's carting Serena off even as she protests, Kaylee breaking away from Simon to follow after them, Jayne practically salivating at the thought of _free_ women in scantily dressed clothes. Nathan salutes Mal before following the other, a saucy grin on his lips. Mal is numb as he watches them walk off, feeling lost and something burning in his chest. The thought of other men touching all that silky but scarred skin, running their fingers through her unnaturally sleek hair, running pampered hands over that gorgeous body… Mal was furious and despairing at it, wishing that all the men that would touch her would have their hands broken for their efforts, wishing it was _his_ hands over her lean frame…

"Damn. I hate it when she does that, goin' off without me," Will says. Mal has to restrain himself from saying something unpleasant to the other man. "Don't like it when my girl gets dressed up and goes dancin' without me, see?" Mal's emotions peak, spiking off sharply and dangerously. The conversation from a few weeks ago plays in his head, how they used to _date_, and images from the past few weeks of the two of him add to the melee of torture brewing in his brain.

"Oh, so she's _yours_ now?" he growls. Will (feigns) confusion at the Captain.

"Well, of course. She's always been mine." _Ha! Poor chap – he looks like he's bein' driven mad. Serena's certainly wound him up tight enough… game's out of her hands this time though; she's as ready to explode as he is._ Will neglects to mention _which_ female he's talking about as Mal's face slowly turns scarlet and then white as the words sink in. _This is working a little _too_ perfectly_… he thinks, a mixture of amusement and worry spilling inside him. This better work or it's going to blow up in _all_ their faces. Bringing Jayne though? Work of genius on Echo's part. Of course, if Mal is thinking properly he'd realize between Nathan, Serena and Echo no one could get away with anything. Thankfully for them the 'verse has rained down its capricious blessings, and Mal is _not_ thinking.

Simon comes over in a daze, a red lipstick stain on his cheek. Will smirks at him. "Bugger this, let's go."

"What? But it's _their_ night," Simon protests. Loudly and in such a staged manner that Will winces. Mal glares at him and then away, eyes glowing with hatred. Will snorts a laugh he tries to mask by clearing his throat. _God, I hope they've had enough time… Can't screw this up, have to be careful…_

"I don't care if it's the end of the fuckin' 'verse – no one's keeping me from my girl. Simon, you in?"

"For Kaylee? Of course. Mal should come too, in case Jayne causes trouble." Will groans at the doctor's lack of subtly. But Mal's not paying attention to that. He's focused completely on Serena; Will can see it in his eyes. Just as she is whenever his name pops up… or she's day-dreaming… or even dancing with Will… _Yeah, match made in heaven, those two._

"I'm in," Mal nods. "For Jayne," he hastily adds, trying to cover his tracks. Simon and Will share a look before the latter grins, a Cheshire-cat grin spreading across his thin lips.

"Bloody wonderful! But you gotta clean up first."

_If one more goddamned mother ruttin' arsehole puts his gorram hands on me, I will kill the entire fecking club._ Serena's dark thoughts cross her mind as she squirms between writhing body's to get to the bar. Jayne is knocking back drinks even as a girl with vivid purple and red streaks in her dark hair grinds into his lap and kisses his neck. Serena makes a face and stays far away from _that_ fiasco. _Really? Do I _really_ need to see that?_

Though to be honest, Kaylee, Echo and Nathan aren't much better. The two women have only been dancing with each other, but the way their dancing has every straight man panting and trying to intrude on them. Nathan even has the sly guys chasing after him, and while he's not interested in even a night of hot and anonymous sex, he's certainly thrilled at the attention. Serena, however, is miserable. She came here, albeit under duress, to _dance_. Yet every time she gets lost in the music, let's her body take over and _move_, she feels hands skirt on her body. The first couple of times she simply waltzed away, but after the attention continued she started pounding on fingers to get the point across. Unsuccessfully.

The problem is the hands were too _smooth_: skin silky, soft, nails groomed to perfection, not an ounce of hard work shown in the sensitive flesh. She prefers clean but rough, pressing into her like he _knows_ how strong she is, yet gentle at the same time, showing a 'verse of affection for her. She wants _Mal's_ hands on her body, not these pampered strangers. She wants _his_ manly scent in her nostrils, _his_ body pressed against hers, _his_ blue eyes piercing her every time she opens her own. Serena shakes her head at herself. _God I'm pathetic_. She had seen the way Mal was becoming antsy, seen the way he had started glancing at his beloved ship, and she'd known. She'd known he was about to leave her here. She loves the Riis, but for God's sake, she wants to _stay with him!_ She left the money on his bed to make sure that he would get it _before_ he left her. God, even the words in her mind make her chest tight.

Echo appears beside her, grinning from ear to ear. A dark, thrumming beat pounds through the upscale club, enchanting and sexy it's heavy beats. "C'mon!" her friend declares, dragging her back onto the floor.

"Echo I'm not really up for more dancing," Serena protests. She loves the rhythm, loves the feeling of letting go of all control, but she's had enough. "I'm sorry, but I think I'm done." She misses the naked panic in Echo's eyes as she turns to go back to the bar. Maybe Jayne can drive her home…

"One more dance?" Kaylee pleads, big green eyes begging her. "You've only danced a few times Rena! Just one more?" The use of the nickname, the eyes, oh Lord her lower lip even trembles… Serena gives in with a sigh.

"One," she allows, moving onto the center and starting to sway her hips in time to the beat. Kaylee stays with her for a long time, as does Echo. No more men hit on her or grab her. Serena feels herself relax, the strobe lights playing over her skin and dappling it enchanted hues. Vaguely she notices that Echo and Kaylee are shifting away from her, but she's lost again, hips rolling, arms above her head, eyes closed. She tilts her head back, arching slightly, her hair spilling over her shoulders to flow in thick tresses down her back, beautiful in a gently primal way if such a thing even exists.

Hand's slide around her waist, hands rasping over the silk of her dress (rather _decently_ to be honest), and she groans, angry at being interrupted _again_ – wait, rasping? Serena stills, the feeling of callused palms rucking her dress up catching her attention. She could say it's Jayne or Nathan, claim it's one of her brotherly types at first since no other man here has such rough palms and _he can't be here_, but the warmth that presses against her back isn't _nearly_ broad enough and since when does Nathan dance with _girls_? Serena is almost afraid to turn around when a head dips down onto her shoulder, lips pressing intimately against her ear. She catches a faint but familiar aroma that makes her close her eyes and lean back, catching glimpses of sandy-yet-dark hair beneath the bright colored lights. She knows even before he speaks who this is.

"Dance with me?" It's both plea and demand at once, and she finds herself nodding. Mal's teeth flash in a grin that makes her knees become weak before he leans back. Serena follows, arms encasing his neck and pulling him closer, trapping him against her. Hesitantly at first but with more confidence as she realizes that yes, this is real, she moves her hips, half-grinding against him and half swaying. Mal seems startled by the contact but it fits; the darkness of the club, the music, her own desire flaring as it mixes with longing and the anger from the past few weeks. It's a volatile mix yet it burns her skin with such a pleasing smolder that she doesn't push them away.

Mal is not a good dancer by any means. He doesn't seem to understand the rhythm at all and is completely out of tune with the beat. But he knows how to follow Serena's liquid movements in his arms, how to slide his hands across her skin in a way that causes gooseflesh to raise and for her to shiver, even how to sway with her. When she tilts her head Mal can see that she's biting back a smile. Without warning she grabs his hand, spinning away from and then to him so quickly he barely has time to catch her. She drapes back over his hands, like silk tumbling from his fingers onto the dance floor, hair gleaming purple with a particular light. He watches her as she rises, instinctively moving up with her. Serena's gaze flickers over him, heat flaring deep in her eyes. For the first time tonight Mal is grateful that Will shoved the leather pants and tight black button down at him. Seeing that flame in Serena's gaze is more than enough reward for the ridiculous outfit.

She notices his smirk and grins fleetingly in return. "Thought you wanted to dance Captain Tight-pants?" she says in what is supposed to be a snarky tone but comes across as breathless. _Damn him and those beautifully tight leather pants!_ Mal just grins.

"I did. Not what I want to be doin' right now though." The passion in his eyes makes her gulp, step closer to him, wrap her arms around his neck and begin twirling her hips again. They are probably going to set fire to the club if they keep it up. The burning lust between them is incendiary, all-consuming, driving them to new and higher need. He can't stop touching her and she can't seem to pull away from him even if she was trying. Which she's not. The heat is burning away everything against this, everything inside of her resisting, and she can't even care anymore.

They lose track of… everything. They dance until the DJ starts shouting that there will only be one more song before the club closes. He's watching them just as everyone else is. The majority of eyes are hostile and jealous; much of the men who coveted Serena earlier in the evening are outraged and astounded by her easy acceptance of this new man. She is a beautiful woman despite the scars decorating her body like badges of honor, and if her face wasn't convincing enough, the way she moves is more than enough to tell every man here that she would be one unforgettable night. Yet the angel rejects them all, all of the society men with more money than they know what to do with, for a _worker_. What does he have that they don't? Why is it that this man, who can't even dance properly, is turning her into a sensual goddess when before she was cold as ice? They watch how he touches her, how she touches him in return, and feel the sting of rejection deep inside them. Why does _he_ win? Four pairs of eyes smirk at each other and congratulate each other on a job well done before going back to their own dances, their own couples, their own hearts and lust fueled bodies. Nathan for his part smiles a little before going out to start the ship. He's seen enough to know his sister really isn't going to be staying with them; what kind of fool would turn down that? His chest aches as he departs the club, remembering how not even half a year ago he was hear with his partner, the same kind of love burning in his chest as he saw here tonight. No, he won't intrude on his sister's future with a man who would do anything to protect her. Only Jayne is oblivious, too busy with his tongue down a girl's throat and his hand on her ass. He'll be happy for her… later.

Mal and Serena have to be dragged from the floor, unwilling to give this up quite yet. But once Mal stops staring adoringly (and lustfully) into her eyes he sees Will is tapping his shoulder and smirking. Rage flares, deep inside, and he holds Serena tighter to him… until he notices that Will's arm is wrapped around a grinning Echo. "Ain't my girl a gorgeous dancer?" Will demands when he has Mal's attention, kissing Echo's temple as she giggles and swats at his chest. Mal's brain stutters, freezes, then spins out of control as he realizes that he was played. And played well. Serena's eyes widen as she glances back and forth between Will and Mal, then Simon and Kaylee (who are too busy hurrying out of the club in a desire-induced haze to notice what's happening now).

"Stop it Will! We'll see you two later, alright?" Echo says to them, kissing Serena's stiff cheek before grabbing Jayne (who is _not_ happy at the interruption) before leaving as well.

"Are they… together?" Mal asks feebly after a long silence. Serena is pleased to note that he has not let her go, and even happier to note she is feeling completely stable right now. Thrilled is more accurate for the rush coursing through her. _Maybe_…

"Um, yeah. You didn't know that?" she asks incredulously, but with a feeling she knows where this is going. Mal actually blushes under her knowing look.

"Son of a whore told me ya two were together," he mumbles. Then looks confused. "No wait, he didn't, he let me _believe_ ya were with -" She almost laughs at his adorably perplexed expression. _Oh, they got us alright_, she thinks, seconds before grabbing Mal by the neck and slamming her lips into his roughly. _Thank God! And can I say he is extremely sexy jealous… oh…_ Mal responds to her almost instantly, opening his mouth and _devouring_ her. She's in his arms and being carried awkwardly through the club and out the door before she can even flick her eyes open and she doesn't mind. In fact she's impatiently prodding him to go faster, get them to _Serenity_ that much quicker. Once on the ship, they stumble and laugh and kiss until they practically tumble into his bunk and then on his bed.

They should probably talk. They should talk about what's happening, the confusion they both caused, what they're plans are. But for them there is this moment, the heady taste and scent of sex and the blur of their love-making surrounding them. Two souls clash repeatedly in a tangle of sweaty limbs and throaty gasps, loving caresses and almost painful touches, pushing themselves further into this world of blooming love and ecstasy. Afterwards they lie together, Mal refusing to relent his almost crushing hold on her now that they're here, and Serena just as content to remain where she is with his strength pinning her to him. _Perfect it happened here, on this boat_, she thinks in her slightly addled and very worn out mind. _Had to happen here, didn't it?_ This is very true in a sense. Of course they would consummate this _thing_ they have on the ship she has known her whole new life, her happy existence. To Serena this is, and always will be, home. No matter what happens this will be her home just as it is Mal's. Nothing could possibly part her from her beloved ship or its captain.

Mal, on the other hand, is less blissful. He's tense again, worried about what this _means_. Is this good-bye? Or is this a promise of more? The wicked idea has his arms convulsing around her, the thought of her leaving but the thought of her staying heart-pounding in its intensity. "Are you stayin'?" he whispers into her hair finally, a partly undone braid tickling his nose. Serena at first doesn't understand, and she tries to push away to see his face. Mal won't let her get far, so she's stuck with tilting her head on his chest and staring up at him from the awkward vantage point.

"What do you mean?" she asks softly. Mal's eyes tighten.

"Are ya stayin' on _Serenity_ or are ya goin' ta stay with yer ma?" he demands in a harsher tone. Confusion swirls in her gaze for another moment before it hardens and she shoves away from him, her impressive strength kicking in.

"Wait a second. Are you going to kick me out right after we just made l- had sex?!" she splutters. Now it's Mal's turn to become confused. Agitated now, Serena swears in both English and Chinese as she digs around for her clothes, making to lurch off the bed. "Ungrateful Independent bastard –" Mal finally understands and grabs her, hauling her still naked body back beside his. She wriggles, trying to get away from him, but he won't let her go as he starts laughing. This only angers her further so she is _really_ struggling to get away.

"Why in the _hell_ would I kick you out?" Mal splutters between chuckles. "That's the _last_ thing I wanna do!" Serena stills, lying silent and bare before him. Mal has to refocus from her perfectly imperfect body to her intensely guarded eyes.

"But… I thought…" Hope breaks through, cracking the foundation of her armor, and Mal laughs some more, his breath whispering through her hair. She begins to giggle too as the truth strikes her as it did him.

"An' I thought ya were leavin' me," he confesses. She actually bursts into loud guffaws at that, joining him in the laughter. And then the activities it produced.

"I'm stayin', Malcolm Reynolds," she whispers later, pressing her lips against the still rapid beating of his heart. "Whether you gorram like it or not." Mal squeezes her closer to him, happiness overflowing from every pore on his body.

"Good," he sighs into her creamy lined skin. "No, that's perfect Darlin'." She smiles and snuggles closer as they both drop into the hidden realms of slumber. We really are fools in love.

"Perfect," Morgan grins to himself. "Just perfect." The damn equipment kept malfunctioning for the past three weeks, but he's got it now. _Serenity_ is clear on his screen, the woman of his dreams inside at this very moment, ready and waiting for him to come get her. "Just stay right there, Harmony. Stay. Right. There."

**Had to do that, didn't I? And I was stuck listening to two songs with the right beat for the club for over an hour, so I darn well better get a review or two for this! I'm going to be singing Ne-Yo's "Closer" in my sleep at this point… I actually wish I could have added a joke about James Dean (I just watched **_**Heathers…**_**) but it was not meant to be. Sigh… oh well, it was still "titillating" (what an awesomely awkward word! to write! Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I did writing!**

**-Bella**


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